Image Comics, a comics publisher created by several high-profile illustrators at the time, which would allow creators to have control of their comic characters instead of the publisher. Spawn was a massive hit when it premiered, with issue 1 selling 1.7 million copies.
Spawn launched a multimedia empire for McFarlane, who used the popularity of the Spawn comics to create McFarlane Toys in 1994. The comic's popularity led to the animated series on HBO titled Todd McFarlane's Spawn which ran for three seasons from 1997 to 1999. Spawn also got a feature film in 1997, with Michael Jai White in the lead role. However, the film was a critical and box-office disappointment, and since the '90s, the character's popularity has decreased. Despite many attempts to get a Spawn movie off the ground, the latest cinematic appearance of the character was a cameo role in 2018's Ready Player One.
In an interview with CBR, McFarlane explains what has been holding up the planned reboot of the film. He does not want to redo the origin of the film, seeing that as material they covered in the 1997 Spawn film. McFarlane wants the Spawn reboot movie to be different and relevant for today's audience. Read what McFarlane said in the interview below:
"I didn't want to do the comic book origin story from Issues #1-3 in the movie. We were looking for people, without even telling them that, to give something a little bit different. Unfortunately, 80-90% 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+ years ago from New Line. So what haven't we seen that would be interesting and relevant today, both in of filmmaking and social content."
McFarlane has been working on a new Spawn movie since at least 2009. The film started to take shape in 2015, and in 2017, teamed up with horror producer Jason Blum and Blumhouse Productions with the plan for McFarlane to direct the film. Jamie Foxx has been linked to the title role of Spawn since 2018, and the latest news in August 2021 had Broken City screenwriter, Brian Tucker, brought on board to rewrite McFarlane's script. The film has been in development for years, and Jason Blum has said the reboot is taking longer than he would like. McFarlane has said he wants to take his time and get the film right.
While Spawn might have been most popular in the '90s, the character has been going through a resurgence in recent years. The character was a able fighter for Mortal Kombat 11 and the character's latest comic, King Spawn #1, broke records with nearly half a million preorders. 2022 will mark 30 years from Spawn's comic debut, and with a wave of nostalgia for '90s properties, the time might just be right for a Spawn reboot.
Source: CBR
