Comic book writer/artist Todd McFarlane, creator of Image Comics' Spawn, revealed in an exclusive interview with CBR that the iconic anti-hero's planned reboot film will do more than simply rehash the origin story fans are already familiar with.
"I didn't want to do the comic book origin story from issues #1-3 in the movie," McFarlane said. "We were looking for people, without even telling them that, to give something a little bit different. Unfortunately, 80 to 90 percent of them, according to the other person involved who was interviewing most of them, were falling into the trap of retelling the comic book story in the movie. We saw that movie. That movie came out 20-plus years ago from New Line. So what haven't we seen that would be interesting and relevant today, both in terms of filmmaking and social content."
McFarlane refers to the 1997 film adaptation of Spawn, which was directed by Mark A.Z. Dippé and starred Michael Jai White in the title role. The planned Spawn reboot is slated to be directed by McFarlane himself, with Broken City screenwriter Brian Tucker currently penning the script. When asked what made Tucker stand out, McFarlane replied, "Well, it wasn't just my decision. There's a handful of other people working on it that we haven't announced yet."
He continued, "One of the people working on it: that is going to be a big name when we finally get to announce it. I think he said he went through close to a hundred scripts by as many people as he could. We were looking ideally for someone that could bring a voice to the character on two levels: I'm just a white, Canadian kid. I haven't lived the life of a man in America of someone with dark skin. We thought it was important to get the perspective of somebody who has, someone with that perspective coming in and adding a slightly different bent to what you and I, as comic book readers, already know as to what Spawn is about."
McFarlane has planned a new Spawn film for a number of years now, with the reboot -- set to be his directorial debut -- currently in development at Blumhouse Productions, with Jason Blum producing. Before Tucker joined the project, it was expected that McFarlane would write the film in addition to directing. At one point, Jamie Foxx and Jeremy Renner had been cast in the roles of Spawn and Twitch Williams, respectively, though it's currently unclear if they're still attached to the project.