Outside of Marvel or DC, it's tough to find a more impactful comic book superhero than that of Spawn. Created by former Marvel Comics superstar Todd McFarlane, "Spawn" served as one the big launch titles for Image Comics (which McFarlane co-founded back in the early 1990s). It was a massive, genre re-defining IP, with the comic book series still going strong to this day. "Spawn" was even big enough to get a big-budget, live-action movie adaptation from New Line Cinema in 1997.

Unfortunately, the film didn't do well critically or commercially. Ever since then, McFarlane has been highly protective of the Spawn character and understandably so, even holding off on discussing a new movie until roughly 2009. Later, in 2016, McFarlane revealed he had finished a script for a new "Spawn" film. A year after, the horror maestros at Blumhouse Productions signed on to produce the project, with McFarlane slated to write and direct the "Spawn" movie himself. Thus began one of the most tumultuous journeys through development hell in modern cinema history.

Recently, McFarlane provided an update to ComicBook.com during the 2025 San Diego Comic-Con, hinting that the project is still in the works and that he and the film's other creatives are now in discussions with a new A-list director. Still, nothing is set in stone. That being the case, we're going to go over the entire timeline of this movie's journey through development hell, year by year. Buckle up, because it's a ride.