Jamie Foxx-Led 'Spawn' Reboot Bulks Up with 'Joker' and 'Captain America 4' Writers

With Jamie Foxx still committed to a starring role as the demonic anti-hero, the development of a new Spawn film continues to gain momentum.

After years of false starts and personnel shuffling, a Spawn reboot with Jamie Foxx appears to actually be on the way.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film has landed a trio of new writers with plenty of weight in the whole comic book adaptation game, tapping Falcon and The Winter Soldier's Malcolm Spellman, Joker's Scott Silver, and Matt Mixon. They'll take the pen from Spawn creator Todd McFarlane, who wrote the previous version of the film's script and was, for a time, hoping to direct. though he appears to have come around to letting a bigger name take the helm. "If we’ve got an A-list actor, A-list producers, A-list writers, then do you want to shoot for A-list directors, A-list cinematographers?," McFarlane asked THR. "The answer is, ‘Of course.’ Let’s keep the momentum going.'"

Spellman, who is also part of the writing team for Captain America 4, is particularly excited by the opportunity to work on a Spawn film with McFarlane and Foxx. "Todd McFarlane’s Spawn character was always one of my favorites — a Black superhero that was no bullshit, he was cool and dealt with modern issues," Spellman said in a statement.

With Foxx still committed to a starring role as the demonic anti-hero, the latest additions to the team are the first signs of genuine momentum in the development of a new Spawn film since it was initially announced as a Blumhouse feature in 2017. Since then, McFarlane seems to have taken a muse in Silver's Joker treatment, which managed to earn critical, pedestrian, and institutional acclaim as an "edgy" R-rated film. "Why not just go for the guy who wrote the movie?," McFarlane told THR. 

A previous film adaptation of McFarlane's comic was released in 1997, starring Michael Jai White. In 2019, the actor expressed doubt over whether a Spawn reboot would ever actually work out. “I don’t understand it, personally,” Jai White said. “I wish him the best of luck. But Todd explained to me that this will be a character that you didn’t see. You never see the character. It’s just a character that’s scarcely on film. Personally, I don’t get it.”