The comic book anti-hero Spawn might be one of the more interesting of the non-Marvel/DC characters out there. A mercenary burned to death on a mission only to make a deal with a demon to return to Earth as a Hellspawn, a powerful general in the army of hell. Instead of using his powers for evil, he usually ends up punishing gangsters, crooked cops, murders, serial killers, and his former co-workers. He’s also one of the few super popular black heroes from that era in comics.
It’s creator Todd McFarlane, has been dreaming of a new feature film project after the disaster on the first one back in 1997. It’s a popular character which had massive merchandise in the in the 1990s with toys, comics (of course), video games, and even a badass R-rated animated series that aired on HBO. There is a huge demand and even more so after the recent success of projects like Deadpoool and Logan making serious coin, it was only a matter of time before a deal was struck with a studio.
That time has come.
Todd just announced the news to Kevin Smth at San Diego Comic-Con during his IMDB panel that he’ll be partnering with producer Jason Blum of Blumhouse Pictures for a new live-action film with Todd eyeing the director’s chair. This was later confirmed by Blumhouse Pictures on their official site.
Todd McFarlane and his entertainment division (McFarlane Films) is partnering with Jason Blum and Blumhouse Productions, the producing force behind recent hits GET OUT and SPLIT and THE PURGE franchise, to develop a feature film around the Spawn comic character created by McFarlane and published by Image Comics. McFarlane has written the first draft of the screenplay and is set to make his directorial debut in this dark exploration of one of comics’ most popular characters.
McFarlane is known for reinventing the look of Spider-Man as well as co-creating the Venom character for Marvel Comics.
The studio is likely best known for movies like Get Out, Split and The Purge series. While we understand Todd’s desire to direct the film, we’re a bit worried about his lack of feature experience and having not picked up a camera in almost fifteen years. Blumhose recently worked with Jordan Peele on Get Out, who could make a badass faithful film too.
SOURCE: BLUMHOUSE