Last year, Image Comics co-founder Todd McFarlane revealed talks were in progress to develop two different Spawn animated series. It sounds as though one of those series is close to happening — and soon, too.
Appearing on ComicBook.com's Talking Shop, McFarlane teased that he's got "about ninety minutes of a show ready, teed up, ready to go." There's still considerable work to be done, like cell animation, music and sound effects, but it sounds as though this project could be underway.
"Actually years ago we started a second go-round at it, and I still have all of that work. And it includes all the voice recordings and everything. So I've got about ninety minutes of a show ready, teed up, ready to go; the only thing I need to do is the cell animation, everything else has been designed. Obviously we need to put some music and sound effects or something - but yeah, I've been sitting on a 90-minute version of it for a long time. I've just been waiting to launch the movie to say 'Hey, let's tumble this all out at the appropriate time.' But yeah, we'll get animation done."
The Spawn creator has been busy over the past few years, but most of his attention, it seems, has been focused on the live action movie. Getting the Blumhouse Pictures-backed film underway, however, has proven difficult.
Last year, McFarlane explained some creative differences were holding up some of the financial aspects of production. But in January, he vowed that production would begin sometime this year. In a more recent interview this month, he blamed himself for the project taking too long to get underway.
McFarlane clearly has big plans and aspirations for Spawn and while all of the the projects sound exciting, it sometimes sounds like he has the cart before the horse when talking about. Hopefully, this new animated series sees the light of day sooner rather than later. But if there's one thing that's certain about McFarlane, he has no shortage of ideas he's willing to throw out there. In fact, he even brought up to Comicbook.com the idea of working on a crossover featuring Spawn, Spider-Man, and Venom. Add it to the list.