Every other year or so, Todd McFarlane has promised that no, really, the new Spawn movie’s totally going to happen! And each time, it’s started to feel less and less like a sure thing, even as Hollywood’s been more than willing get adaptations for literally anything else to the big or small screen in a timelier manner.
After years of false starts, it sounds like the Image Comics founder has had it. In a recent interview with ComicBook, he declared that 2024 would be a “make or break” year for a Spawn flick. “I’m trying to see if we can make the right deal within the norm of the Hollywood structure,” he explained. He’s already got a potential candidate in Jason Blum, who he called “one of the better ones” in the Hollywood system at getting movies off the ground and into theaters. (See: Blumhouse’s steady pace of moderately budgeted releases in recent years.) Blum’s been attached to the film since 2017, and McFarlane’s meant to reading scripts to those attached to the project (who “promised” him he could, he noted) sometime this month…right after he sends out emails reminding them of that.
And should that fail? The creator says he’s got “plenty of outside investors waiting” who he hopes could make it happen. There’s been “plenty of examples” of filmmakers going outside normal channels to get their movie made, he said, and he’s more than willing to go that route. He likened it to independent movies: “You make your movie, and you just find your distributor. I could do that in a heartbeat.” Either way, he hopes to find a solution that ensures everyone who’s touched the project over the years stays involved.
Should McFarlane get that Spawn movie into production, the next question will be who’ll play the titular antihero. Jamie Foxx was announced as the lead all the way back in 2018, and he’s stayed attached to the project while working on other movies and the mid-2023 hospitalisation he’s still gradually recovering from. But this past November, the actor was hit with a lawsuit alleging he sexually assaulted a woman in 2015. He later denied the allegations, and at time of writing, no further news on the matter has been revealed. Several projects he’s involved in are currently in post-production, though none are close enough to release that a decision has been made on how to handle their release in light of the lawsuit.
[via GamesRadar]
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