Comics
Update: Todd McFarlane Says “Academy Award-Winning Guy” Has Exited ‘Spawn’
Assembling a film is like playing Jenga, as there are so many factors that determine cast, budget, location, release, etc. that one wrong move could bring the entire game down.
Todd McFarlane has been pushing the boulder that is his long gestating Spawn reboot up a mountain for years. It appeared to be sitting at the very top after locking down Blumhouse as producers with Jamie Foxx attached to star as the title character and Jeremy Renner as Detective Twitch.
Returning to the Jenga metaphor, McFarlane has been pulling out game pieces in a flurry, demanding to direct, demanding an R-rating, demanding to use his screenplay, and publicly clamoring for a ridiculous $20M budget. All of these factors are dangerous moves that could end the game in an instant.
However, it’s the cast that may have left the project teetering. In speaking with Shoryuken, McFarlane may have let slip that Spawn has lost its star.
“Last week I got some discouraging news, we had an academy award-winning guy who was going to do the movie with us, but he fell off,” said McFarlane.
While he doesn’t outright say his name, Jamie Foxx won an Oscar for “Best Actor” in Ray (2005). There’s still no confirmation of Foxx’s exit, but the loss of someone of his caliber could create a domino effect that eventually crashes the game down. From the sound of it, that’s already what’s happening.
Update: Comicbook.com has their own update to the story: “The Academy-nominated creator was a writer and that McFarlane has moved on to approaching yet another award-winning writer.”
But that statement conflicts with McFarlane’s previous quotes. Here’s what he added after revealing the loss of “an academy award-winning guy”:
“We had people willing to fund the movie as long as we had this guy attached but schedules were conflicting, and things had to change,” McFarlane added. “That’s how close we are to getting this thing off the ground.”
Writers typically don’t have conflicting schedules, which makes this statement odd, but if this update is truthful, the big story here is that McFarlane has ceased demanding the use of his own screenplay and is allowing others to take a crack at it. That would be huge progress.
I grew up on McFarlane’s work and would love nothing more than to see Spawn back on the big screen. However, I continue to remain as skeptical as I was on day one. I’d love to eat my words, but I won’t believe it until I see it.
Comics
‘You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive’ – IDW Dark’s Next Horror Comic Will Make You Question Reality
Five friends. Four houses. One perfect life. Bloody Disgusting is excited to exclusively announce You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive, a brand new horror comic from IDW Dark.
From Eisner-Nominated writers Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly, and rising horror artist Heather Vaughan, You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive is described as a “paranoia-laced, socially-conscious, horror mystery that will leave you questioning reality, and reveal that this crafted world is more of a nightmare than the idealistic dream they were expecting.”
Phoebe Joplin has never questioned the world her parents built: a secluded community where she and her friends were raised to be smarter, stronger, and better than anyone else. No distractions. No dangers. No secrets. Until the night of their graduation.
When one of them dies under impossible circumstances, Phee starts to pull at the edges of her perfect life—and what she finds is something far more terrifying than she ever imagined.
Because this place isn’t a sanctuary. It’s a cage. And no one who discovers the truth ever leaves it alive.
Collin Kelly & Jackson Lanzing (Batman – One Bad Day: Clayface, Star Trek: The Last Starship) co-write the upcoming IDW Dark horror comic, featuring art by Heather Vaughan.
Jackson Lanzing said in a statement to Bloody Disgusting, “You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive is in many ways a spiritual successor to our last creator-owned horror, The Principles of Necromancy – a dive into the promise and consequence of playing god with the blood of innocents. But the Hivemind book this reminds me of most is Clayface: One Bad Day. This is a deeply human story with intensely raw emotions – five best friends and their five mysterious parents, tearing one another apart for the promise of some impossible glory that’s waiting just beyond their darkest actions. We’re thrilled to be bringing this story to life with our long-time partner in crime, editor Heather Antos, at IDW Dark – and we’re particularly excited to give our Clayface fans a new, brutal and emotional horror made just for them.”
Adds Collin Kelly, “We’re deconstructing a feeling that seems universal these days; our elders have a death grip on their power, without any intention of giving it up to the generations that come next. YNLTPA is about growing up with the limitless potential of the future… and realizing how much it’s a lie we’ve been fed to keep us under the yoke of the past. Bringing this brutal experience to life is our artist and co-creator, Heather Vaughan, who brings an incredible amount of humanity to our cast. But it’s in our youthful leads that Heather’s art really shines – you are going to fall in love with these young people, even as they go through the worst experience of their lives. What we’ve all crafted together is going to be tragic, painful, but above all else, sincere – with a future so uncertain, there’s only one thing we can trust: you’ll never leave this place alive.”
“Some horror stories are about monsters in the dark. YNLTPA is about realizing the monsters raised you,” previews Senior Group Editor Heather Antos. “Working with Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly on this series has been a dream in the darkest possible way. They’ve built a story that’s layered, brutal, and deeply emotional, and every issue gives artist Heather Vaughan opportunities to push the art into places that feel both haunting and deeply personal. Some horror comics will keep you up at night…this is one that will stick with you for years to come.”
The first issue of You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive goes on sale October 14, 2026! Make sure to pre-order at your local comic shop by September to guarantee a copy.
Exclusively check out the various covers for Issue #1 down below.
IDW Publishing’s horror imprint IDW DARK features comics like A Quiet Place: Storm Warning, Smile: For the Camera, The Exorcism at 1600 Penn, Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees, The Twilight Zone, Event Horizon: Dark Descent & Event Horizon: Inferno, and more.
You must be logged in to post a comment.