Todd McFarlane Says Spawn Movie Delay Won’t Stop Him, Will Finance Through Kickstarter If Necessary

Todd McFarlane is about to released the milestone 300th issue of his comic book creation Spawn, but while hosting his own “Inspiration & Determination” panel a San Diego Comic-Con 2019, McFarlane was also questioned about the upcoming Spawn reboot movie. The project has been announced as in development with Blumhouse Productions, and already has big stars attached, in the form of Jamie Foxx and Jeremy Renner. However, progress has stalled as of late, and Spawn currently seems to be on the back burner.

During a recent interview with Comicbook.com, McFarlane let it be known that a final financing holdup is keeping Spawn from officially entering production:

“The money’s sitting on the sidelines ready to go. I just need to get everyone that wants to put in money to shake their heads to the same script. As you can imagine, everyone has a slightly different version of it in their head. You just go and trying to appease a handful of people while not giving in to what it is that I’m trying to do myself. Because if I have to change it too much, I’ll just walk away from it all.”

While at Comic-Con 2019, McFarlane elaborated on the Spawn reboot financing hold up – and his threats of action, if the film doesn’t start gaining traction soon. As he explained to the crowd at SDCC2019:

“Lemme see if I can just go real quick: Spawn movie, right? When are you going to make a Spawn movie, when are you going into production? My answer is ‘Yesterday, yesterday, yesterday.’ …. I need $20 million to make this movie, I don’t have all of it. I have to ask people for money, and once you ask people for money, they get to have a say in it. Like I said, it’s a little bit of an uphill battle, because again, I just want to do this little dark ‘R’ movie, and they like those PG-13 success movies.”

That statement hinted at some potentially big behind-the-scenes creative conflicts between McFarlane and the money men. McFarlane punted that ball even further down field, when he went on to rant about how he can (will?) get Spawn made, with or without the current financiers:

“Look I am relentless, I’m like a dog with a bone. I will get there, I promise you. I will get there. Because I will beat the system. Here’s what I’ll do: I’ll do it as a Kickstarter… and here’s the Kickstarter: I need 20 million people to give me a dollar. And I will make this movie, and when I get the money back I’ll return the dollar back to you. And you will be my producers… and all I’ll need is the distribution. That’s doable today. I don’t get why Ryan Gosling doesn’t do that for every one of his movies, ‘I need 20 million of you to give me a dollar,’ are you kidding, he’d have it in an hour and could go do his thing! But people in the system are beholden to it and they have obligations, and the guy on the outside, me, goes ‘I’m only going to give them so much time, and then I’m just going to come up with some crazy idea.”

McFarlane also teased that outside financing not connected to Hollywood studios may seal the deal:

“…there’s people on the outside that want to give me money that aren’t in the system. But we’re going to get it done. I’m just trying to play nice, now, but I’m starting to lose my patience. But we’ll try; it’s going to get there one way or another, I promise you. I’m not going to let this one go.”

We’ll keep you updated on the status of Todd McFarlane’s Spawn movie reboot.