The early days of superhero cinema was an interesting timeframe. Richard Donner’s Superman opened Hollywood up to the possibility of major comic book adaptations being real moneymakers, but they were nonetheless slow to attempt to replicate the Man of Steel’s success. And, when they did, they were safe bet projects…mostly. It boiled down to the four Superman movies running from the late ’70s to the late ’80s, the four Batman movies from the late ’80s to the late ’90s, and a couple of major wildcards. Specifically, stuff like Howard the Duck in 1986, Judge Dredd in 1995, and Spawn in 1997.
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The difference between Spawn and Howard or Judge Dredd, though, is that Spawn made money ($87.9 million against a price tag of at most $45 million). And yet, we never got a sequel nor have we ever gotten a reboot. Though it’s certainly not for a lack of trying on IP creator Todd McFarlane’s part. And, frankly, it could still work.
The Attempts to Get a Spawn Sequel or Reboot Made
There have been attempts to continue Spawn‘s financial success ever since the movie came out. From 1998 to 2001 Spawn 2 seemed like a genuine possibility, but nothing ever came of it.
One has to wonder how it would have done had it followed McFarlane’s vision, as the sequel wouldn’t have focused on Spawn so much as it would have focused on Sam and Twitch, who have a very brief cameo in the movie walking Martin Sheen’s Jason Wynn out of the Simmons (now Fitzgerald) home to begin his prison sentence. A Spawn sequel without Spawn in the lead would be a questionable prospect, as the first film’s audience would likely be disappointed to see the IP’s main character relegated to a side role in a sequel.
Word started building on a full reboot around 2007. In fact, it was supposed to be released in 2008. That never happened, but McFarlane has nonetheless been diligent in trying to get some spark behind the project. In 2009, he said that he had started writing the screenplay based on an idea for a story he had for nearly ten years by that point. He said it would be “neither a recap or continuation. It is a standalone story that will be R-rated. Creepy and scary.”
Around this time Michael Jai White said he would be up for returning to the title role, but he has also stated that he doesn’t particularly care for the 1997 film, so even if it had been made in the 2010s, it likely would have gone to an actor more interested in creating a fresh new take. After all, if it had come out in the 2010s, it would have been about 15 years removed from the original film, which leads one to believe it would have been a reboot as opposed to a direct follow-up.
Enter Jamie Foxx, who was fighting to get the movie pretty hard for a while there. And, in 2018, about five years after he first expressed interest, he was announced as the actor who would pick up White’s Hellish mantle.
Blumhouse’s Involvement
In 2016, McFarlane had a full, completed script for a Spawn reboot just waiting to be shot. It would have been a smaller, horror-focused movie as opposed to the superhero vibe the original film went for. Then, the following year, the perfect production company for such a movie confirmed they were involved with it: Blumhouse Productions.
So, by 2018, three major parts were in place: the screenplay, the lead actor, and the production company. Then Jeremy Renner was announced to take over the role of Detective Twitch. It undoubtedly would have had the star power to become a success, especially if Blumhouse could keep the budget low, which has always been their specialty.
Yet even though the camera was supposed to start rolling in June 2019, nothing came of it. Five months later, when Joker became a mega-smash hit, the reboot again got some gas in the tank. After some script polishing, McFarlane announced in early 2020 that the reboot would go into production by the year’s end, with him directing Foxx (and likely still Renner) remaining in the title role and with the continued involvement of Blumhouse.
Even with all this momentum and puzzle pieces in place, this version of a Spawn reboot, tentatively titled King Spawn, never got off the ground. It’s quite surprising, as it could have been a win for Blumhouse. Perhaps not to the extent of their 2018 Halloween, but it would still be an adaptation of a recognizable IP shot on a restricted budget with at least one major name on the poster.
And while it has been a few years, this trifecta (McFarlane, Blumhouse, and Foxx) really seems like the way to go. It could be another successful franchise for Blumhouse, provided they aren’t too shaken on creating such a thing after the big swing failure of M3GAN 2.0.
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image courtesy of 20th Century Studios
