Todd McFarlane Is Going To Cameo In His 'Spawn' Movie

Todd McFarlane, who will write and direct Spawn for Blumhouse, says he'll make a Stan Lee-esque cameo in the 2019 horror thriller.

Speaking at Ace Comic Con in Phoenix, Arizona alongside Marvel Comics visionary Stan Lee, McFarlane referenced Lee's inclusion in almost every big screen Marvel adaptation.

"How many institutions do you ever have a chance to form? I created an institution, the Stan Lee cameo," the 95-year-old comic creator said. "I'm very proud of it."

"Wow, you know what? I'm about to get ready to shoot a Spawn movie, I'm gonna put myself in it," McFarlane said.

"That's all I need, more competition," Lee quipped.

"I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna cameo," McFarlane said. "Then we're gonna be up against each other when it's award time for Best Cameo."

McFarlane said in October he hopes to have Lee appear in Spawn.

"I got a good buddy named Stan Lee, and he keeps going, 'When are we going to shoot that cameo, Todd?'" McFarlane told ComicBook.com. "So hopefully, I'll get Stan to maybe come in there and do something."

McFarlane wants to give the comic book icon a "gnarly" appearance.

"I want to do a dark anti-cameo, unfriendly Stan Lee, and he's like, 'Todd, I'm in!' I've explained what I want to do, and he's like, 'Oh, cool,'" McFarlane said.

"'So, I'm not gonna be, like, the happy-go-lucky?' I go, 'No, you're gonna be ugly. You're gonna be this Schlitz-drinking, wife beater, three-day-old shave, snarly dude,'" McFarlane said. "And he's like, 'I love it!' So, we'll see if we can pull it off."

"[Alfred] Hitchcock used to be in his creepy movies, and then I remember M. Night Shyamalan went into his, and I go, 'Come on! If you can't have fun being in yours, then what the heck, right?'" McFarlane said of his plan to include cameos other than Lee.

The Spawn creator aims to make the small-budget horror into a franchise.

Blumhouse, the production studio behind low-budget but big box office earners Paranormal Activity, The Visit and Get Out, produces. McFarlane writes and directs for a planned 2019 release.