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.
The supernatural world of Korean folk horror movie Exhuma grows larger with the arrival of prequel spinoff webtoon Maengjong this weekend, Variety reports today.
Naver Webtoon debuts Maengjong on May 30.
The series hails from Haemuri (Olgami) and will trace the high school origins of how shaman duo Hwarim and Bonggil, played by Kim Go-eun and Lee Do-hyun in the 2024 film, came together to face occultish threats.
The story is set to begin when “Hwarim, who has been concealing her identity following a childhood encounter with a snake spirit called Jin, crosses paths with Bonggil at their school.”
Variety notes that Exhuma director Jang Jae-hyun participated in the project’s early concept stage.
“We are presenting ‘Maengjong,’ a new series capturing the appeal of the horror-occult genre, ahead of the full summer season,” said Lee Jeong-geun, Naver Webtoon’s Korea webtoon content leader. “With the high school story of Hwarim and Bonggil, who left a strong impression in the film ‘Exhuma,’ enhanced by Haemuri’s characteristic tense direction, we expect it will be a welcome work for genre fans.”
“It is meaningful that the spin-off story of ‘Exhuma,’ loved by many audiences, expands by meeting the new grammar of webtoon,” said Lee Hyeon-jeong, managing director of the film business division at Showbox, which distributed the film. “We hope it will be a fresh experience for both film fans and webtoon readers.”
Exhuma was a breakout hit in 2024, becoming the first Korean occult film to surpass 10 million ticket buyers and the country’s highest-grossing film of the year. I wrote in my review that “the intricately woven Exhuma delivers one of the year’s biggest surprises in horror so far.”
The bond between Hwarim and Bonggil was one of the film’s highlights, making this prequel webtoon a must for fans.
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