Blumhouse Productions’ head Jason Blum recently took to Twitter to post a photo of the script of King Spawn, the working title of a tentatively upcoming new Spawn film.
The photo naturally emphasizes the title, but it also reveals that the script is being written by Joker and Joker 2’s co-scribe Scott Silver, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier‘s Malcolm Spellman, and Matt Mixon, writer of Yesterday Was Everything.
That’s good news, but the title is a possible source of confusion even for fans for reasons that we’re about to go into. To help put some doubts to rest, Spawn’s creator Todd McFarlane gave Comicbook an interview in which he shared some interesting details on the project.
What is King Spawn?
King Spawn is the title associated with the new film project, but also the name of an ongoing series of Spawn comics. This could likely lead fans to think they’re looking into an adaptation of the King Spawn comics, but McFarlane told Comicbook that this is probably just the working title:
“It’s probably just a working title. I think it’s cool. It’s strong. The thing is, is that it was a way for us to say that we’re not just gonna emulate the past and he felt by just calling it Spawn plain old Spawn that it would sort of go, oh, this is just a reboot and, and repeat. So I don’t know if that would be the final title or whatever. You have to clear things and let go and all those other things. But it was just a way to separate it, to just at least for us internally just to say, hey, this is our version that is different from the one decades ago.”
Todd McFarlane
King Spawn is the first spinoff of the main series. It began its run in 2022 and is about to get its fifth volume. The spinoff sees the titular anti-hero finally ascending to the throne of Hell right before realizing he’d been tricked into leaving New York without its protector.
The future of Spawn
McFarlane said that he’s currently looking for a director and hopes the release of Deadpool & Wolverine, and Joker: Folie à Deux gets studios hyped for such an R-Rated project.
“We’ve got to find a director, right? Now we have a script, we also have to find a director. So that would probably be the next move we make is to attach the final piece of this. So we have a lot of the components in place and then we walk into Hollywood and see where their heads at. By next Monday there should be big data out there, with Deadpool & Wolverine, saying that you can do R-rated comic book movies. And then a few months after that, there’s gonna be Joker 2, that’s gonna give me even more data. So whether we’re in their offices just after New York Comic Con, which is when Joker 2 comes out, we’ll see it. I know it’s frustrating to people but having a script is a giant hurdle to get over and we’re over (it). The weight of that piece is there now. It’s just putting a couple of different pieces together. And let’s see what the executives in Hollywood think about it.”
Todd McFarlane
We had learned about the plans for a Spawn reboot with the attachment of Jamie Foxx as far back as 2017, but the project went dark as Blumhouse reportedly encountered severe setbacks that forced the company to heavily rework what they had. This is the first time in a while that we’re getting a strong indication that things are once again moving forward.
Spawn was one of the first comic book superheroes to receive the movie adaptation treatment in the modern era, but it failed to meet the success of other late ’90s and early ’00s superhero flicks like Blade and X-Men. Still, the movie has its fans, and the character has remained popular throughout this entire time. One must wonder why Spawn never got another chance in Hollywood, especially during the heyday of superhero films.
Published: Jul 26, 2024 03:45 pm