Todd McFarlane’s long-awaited Spawn reboot may have landed its lead actor.
According to That Hashtag Show, Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx has been offered the titular role of the Blumhouse Productions project. Though this is big news, it’s not totally surprising. Rumors of Foxx’s involvement with the film go all the way back to 2013, when he was “aggressively pursuing” the role of Al Simmons.
The report states Foxx has not officially signed on to play the title character, and that his decision may have an effect on how quickly production begins. This makes sense: Having an award-winning actor attached to the film will likely motivate the studio—and investors—to get the ball rolling.
The original Spawn hit U.S. theaters back in 1997 and garnered less-than-stellar reviews from critics. McFarlane, the comic’s creator, has been attempting to give the popular anti-hero a shot at redemption with his very own reboot. He has since given fans a sneak peek at the new Spawn script, which he describes as a “dark, R-rated, scary, badass sort of script.”
In a 2009 interview with MTV, McFarlane shed more light on what kind of story he had in mind:
“The thing I’ve had in my head for a long time isn’t a big comic-book movie,” he explained. “Everything’s real; it’s like The Departed, L.A. Confidential or something like that—and there’s only one thing out of the ordinary in the story I’ve written, which is the thing people know as Spawn. And only a few people see it.”
Stay tuned as more information about the Spawn reboot rolls in.
