Exclusive: Todd McFarlane Provides Major Spawn Movie Update In New Geeking Out

What’s happening with the much-discussed, long-in-development movie reboot of Spawn? Geek culture icon Kevin Smith got some information out of the character’s creator, Image Comics co-founder Todd McFarlane, about the project on an upcoming episode of Geeking Out, and AMC has provided ComicBook.com with an exclusive first look at that conversation.

In the clip from Geeking Out, seen above, DC All Access and CW Fan Talk presenter Tiffany Smith talks with McFarlane about the plans for a movie reboot.

“The simple answer is yes,” McFarlane told Smith when she asked about the possibility of another Spawn movie, assuring her that it won’t be a continuation of the 1997 film starring Michael Jai White and John Leguizamo. Rather, it will be “a dark, R-rated, scary, badass sort of script.”

He told her that “the world’s going to be real, except for one thing that’s going to move,” and that “you’re never going to see a dude in a rubber suit….This is going to be my Jaws shark,” and then showed her some concept art.

That all gels with what McFarlane told ComicBook.com back in February.

“In the background, there’s this thing moving around, this boogeyman. That boogeyman just happens to be something that you and I, intellectually, know is Spawn,” he explained. “Will he look like he did in the first movie? No. Will he have a supervillain he fights? No. He’s going to be the spectre, the ghost.”

Also given that Todd McFarlane has had a completed script since earlier this year, we might be closer than ever to hearing some major announcements as far as the film is concerned.

“I’ve finished the script, and I’m in the process of editing,” McFarlane said. “It’s 183 pages, and [producers] usually like 120. I still think it’s going to end up being about 140, because I’m putting in details for myself.”

Spawn launched in 1992, with its first issue becoming an instant collectible in the frantic speculator market of the early ’90s. If you read comic books in the ’90s, you likely remember issues of Spawn #1, which sold 1.7 million copies, retailing for $25 and up for years.

It’s also one of only two comic book series from Image Comics to have been published nonstop since the company’s initial launch in the ’90s, with the other being Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon. Larsen, ironically, just finished a run drawing Spawn from McFarlane’s scripts.

Hosted by Kevin Smith (Comic Book Men, Clerks) and Greg Grunberg (Heroes, Lost, Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens and graphic novel Dream Jumper), Geeking Out is a 30-minute talk show that takes a timely look at pop culture through a fanboy lens and features celebrity interviews, discussion and out-of-the-studio segments. Other guests have included J.J. Abrams, Antoine Fuqua, Jeph Loeb, Jim Lee, Adam Savage, and more.

Geeking Out airs Sunday nights at midnight ET/PT on AMC.