‘Spawn’ Remake Getting Rewrites From ‘Broken City’ Screenwriter Brian Tucker

Despite almost going into production a while back, it looks like Blumhouse has hired a new screenwriter to help with rewrites on the their Spawn remake. Image Comics’ Todd McFarlane created the comic book character after leaving Marvel Comics to form his own creative-driven comic book company. McFarlane is also set to direct the mature comic book film and wrote the original draft of Spawn’s script.

Spawn is centered on a black-ops agent, Al Simmons, who is betrayed and murdered and his soul sent to hell for all the innocents he killed. While there, he makes a deal with a demon who allows him to return to the earthly plane and his wife. However, five years have now passed, and his wife has moved on, while he is a disfigured and superpowered spawn of hell.

The Hollywood Reporter revealed that the studio has assigned Brian Tucker (Broken City) to do rewrites on the script, however, the extent of the reworking isn’t clear. Tucker is also working on The Fugitive remake for Warner Bros. that was announced a while back.

It sounds like they’ve been having trouble getting the film financed and hopefully some rewrites will get things in motion. McFarlane’s original pitch for the remake sounded so off-case that it sort of didn’t even sound like a Spawn movie anymore. As a fan, I kind of wish they’d look to the HBO animated series for inspiration instead of trying to make a low-budget horror film using the Spawn brand to get money for it.

Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx (Miami Vice, Baby Driver, Project Power) had been originally attached to play Al Simmons/Spawn and Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker, Wind River) was going to play Detective Twitch before the project stalled multiple times. It’s unknown if the pair of actors will be coaxed back to return at this point or if the studio will look at finding replacements.

Foxx recently joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe by reprising his role of Electro in Spider-Man: No Way Home coming out on December 17 and Renner’s Disney+ series Hawkeye will debt on November 24.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER