Todd McFarlane Reveals Epic New Spawn Movie With Returning Star As Live-Action Reboot Remains Stalled

Published Jul 27, 2026, 7:25 PM EDT

Centered around former Marine Force Recon Lieutenant Colonel Al Simmons as he's revived after his fiery death and initially meant to do Hell's bidding, the iconic antihero has spawned a wide variety of adaptations thanks to his cult popularity in the '90s, including both the Michael Jai White-starring live-action film and Keith David-led animated series. The past two decades have seen McFarlane attempt to get a Spawn reboot film off the ground, with Jamie Foxx currently attached to star and the search for a director ongoing.

Now, in an interview with ComicBook.com at San Diego Comic-Con 2026, McFarlane has revealed a very different Spawn movie is also on its way. Reflecting on his efforts to revive the '90s animated series, the comic creator revealed that there is a "90-minute animated show that's all been drawn," with the only thing currently missing being the cels to render the scenes in the project, as well as needing "a little bit of Foley" for sound effects and the like, while also needing to "hand it to a studio to actually draw."

However, McFarlane confirmed that "we're ready" to properly get the animated Spawn movie going, even revealing that Keith David reprised his role for the film, while Mark Hamill joined the franchise as Twitch, taking over the role from Michael McShane in the HBO series, with the creator having to push the actor to retain his own voice instead of "doing his animated stuff":

Todd McFarlane: It’s just been sitting in a box waiting to go. I have just been sitting on that going, “No, I think I need to get the movie out, and then boom, once the movie comes out, if there’s any success, then come out with that.” So anybody that wants to do animation, the first thing I’m going to do is say, “Hey, I’ve got this ready to tee up.”

One thing that currently remains unclear is when exactly McFarlane brought Hamill onboard to be part of the animated Spawn movie's cast. In the same interview, he indicated it was early into Hamill's voice acting career, which would have put its production in the early 1990s, as the animated Batman series put him on the map thanks to his Joker performance, which also would have been before the HBO show.

That said, it does seem more likely that David and Hamill's work was part of McFarlane's previous efforts on the Spawn sequel series that kicked off in the mid 2000s, in which the former had been said to be part of the show. Production was quietly shelved a few years later, with no official explanation previously as to why, though the comic creator recently indicated it was over creative differences with production studios involved, and he subsequently bought back the rights.

It would make some sense for the 90-minute project that McFarlane revealed new details about is tied to the scrapped Spawn sequel show. The original HBO series saw its DVD and VHS releases edited into two-hour movies for each season, and with some shows crafting multipart premieres in order to launch, there's a good chance that the animated film serves as either the premiere or a trimmed-down version of his full-season plans for the series.

While it may mostly be ready to go, though, the likelihood of the animated Spawn movie ever making its way to the screen does seem unfortunately low for fans eager to hear David's return as the antihero. Animation may not be as costly as a live-action production, and therefore finding investors to finish the film would be easier than the long-gestating live-action reboot, but should it still require an extensive amount of work, a studio may be reluctant to pick it up and finish it up for release.