‘Spawn’: Todd McFarlane Says Jamie Foxx Jumped at the Chance to Join

Jamie Foxx scored the coveted role of starring as the titular character in the upcoming Spawn reboot, with creator Todd McFarlane recalling to ComicBook.com just how excited the actor was to get involved with the production from their very first meeting.

“I was fortunate enough, I went to my first ask, which was Jamie Foxx,” McFarlane recalled of his early meetings with the actor. “I had talked to him before. I had talked to him at my office, coincidentally, years before, to express his interest in Spawn. So when he left, I thought, ‘That was a kind man,’ he was very charismatic, very sweet person. And usually, you have to go to the stars. He flew to my office, he went from L.A. to Phoenix, and I went, ‘Wow.’ Anybody who makes that effort, I owe them the courtesy of, when I’m ready to actually take this project into Hollywood and start casting it, I owe him the courtesy of going back to him to say, ‘Hey, good sir, are you still interested?’”

With Foxx’s many accomplishments and busy schedule, McFarlane understood that the actor might not have recalled how well those meetings went years ago, though it wasn’t long before Foxx expressed his continued enthusiasm.

“Now, I thought he’d long forgotten that meeting, but he was like, ‘What took you so long?!’” the creator joked. “Like, ‘Todd, of course I’m in! What are you talking about, let’s do this!’ He jumped in with two feet, it wasn’t even a hard sell.”

Unfortunately for fans, we still have a long wait ahead of us before we can feast our eyes on the film, as it doesn’t begin shooting until next June.

McFarlane did previously tease how the character will look in the project and how it will differ from Michael Jai White’s outfit in the first live-action adaptation.

“Does Spawn have a dark mask and his body dark and then does he have a cape in the comic books? Yes, yes, yes. Will he have all of that in the movie? Yes, yes, yes,” McFarlane admitted to ComicBook.com. “So it’s not like I’m going to give him wings instead of a cape and I’m not going to give him no mask instead of a mask. There’s no going to be any of that. It just won’t be exactly what a hardcore fan is used to.

“But I’m hoping that people who just go and are familiar with Spawn will say, ‘Yeah, it’s in the box.’ And people who know nothing about Spawn will go, ‘Wow, that’s cool.’ And I have to design for filmgoers not for comic book fans because the filmgoers are going to be bigger than the pool of the comic book fans.”

Stay tuned for details on the Spawn reboot.

Are you excited by Foxx’s enthusiasm for the project? Let us know in the comments below!