Spawn comic book creator Todd McFarlane is reportedly developing a live-action television series based on the characters of Sam and Twitch, who first appeared in Spawn #1 in 1992 (via The Hollywood Reporter). Becoming fan-favorite characters, the two NYPD homicide detectives were later given their own comic book series from Image Comics starting in 1999, titled Sam and Twitch.
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Jason Smilovic and Todd Katzberg will write the adaptation and are also executive producing the project. The duo are co-creators and showrunners for Epix’s action-thriller series Condor and will also be penning Jennifer Lopez’s upcoming Netflix film adaptation The Cipher.
Indie studio wiip is teaming with McFarlane on the new series, with wiip’s Paul Lee and Mark Roybal (Mare of Easttown) executive producing along with McFarlane for McFarlane Films.
The news comes as McFarlane is considering expanding the world of Spawn by shopping a shared universe around Hollywood, with the creator of the near 30-year-old-comic pointing out that the most successful shared universes, such as Marvel, DC, or Star Wars, had decades of groundwork laid out by “hundreds or even thousands of creators.”
“Could there be a third or fourth big shared universe? Possibly. But is it going to happen fast with one or two individuals? No. It’s going to be a long, multi-creator group that is just going to spread your creative seeds and stand back and hope it grows into a forest,” said McFarlane.
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The comic creator has been working alongside Blumhouse to develop a Spawn feature since 2017, which would mark McFarlane’s directorial debut. The movie would star Oscar winner Jamie Foxx as Spawn with MCU alum Jeremy Renner portraying Twitch.
