There's A New Spawn Movie In The Works, And It's Directed By Todd McFarlane

It's been a long time since the comic book character Spawn has been on movie screens: the first--and last--Spawn film was released way back in 1997. A new Spawn movie is on the way, though. Creator Todd McFarlane announced today at San Diego Comic-Con that his comic is being adapted for film once again, and this time he's going to be directing it.

He's written the first draft of the script already, and he's teaming up with producer Jason Blum and Blumhouse Productions to create the film. If Blumhouse sounds familiar, it's the company that specializes in ultra-low budget horror projects like Paranormal Activity and Get Out. Spawn is envisioned in a similar vein to those films.

McFarlane has been attempting to start work on Spawn for a while, and he's been shopping it around to production companies for a couple of months.

In February 2016, the creator told Comicbook.com that he wanted to avoid the big budgets of other superhero movies so that he could make the film himself. "Basically, I can make this version of the movie on a budget without crazy special effects," he said. "I want to keep it small, keep it tight, so they'll let me direct it!" The partnership with Blumhouse allows him to do just that.

The Spawn comic book was first published in 1992 and was massively popular, with the first issue selling 1.7 million copies. However, the 1997 film adaptation received a negative critical reception and underperformed commercially.