
Todd McFarlane is busier than ever these days, with a massively successful toy company and the ever-expanding Spawn universe all on his plate, which includes the recently announced Spawn ’77. There’s also a Spawn movie in development, but what you probably didn’t know is that he’s actually got an unreleased animated Spawn movie in the vault waiting for its day in the spotlight, and not only is it fully voiced, but it also features the work of Keith David and Mark Hamill.
At San Diego Comic-Con, ComicBook had the chance to speak with McFarlane about the possibility of ever doing a comics sequel to the original Spawn movie or the Spawn animated series, which has been popular recently thanks to books like Batman 89 and Superman 78. That’s when McFarlane revealed the animated project he’s been sitting on for years. “No, not really, because I’d rather do the sequels on screen. Sure, you’re like going, okay, let’s just get more animation out, right, and let’s do the follow-up of the animation on it, because I don’t know if I’ve ever said, we developed, we were in the process of developing the return of this Spawn animation a while back,” McFarlane said. “And then we, I got in a fight at the very end with the production and the lawyer, so I just bought it all back.”
“So I actually have a 90-minute animated show that’s all been drawn, minus the cells. All the voices have been done. Everything, like, we’re ready. All we need is a little bit of Foley, which is sound effects and stuff, and then hand it to a studio to actually draw, right? We’re like, it’s just been sitting in a box waiting to go. I have just been sitting on that going, no, I think I need to get like the movie out, and then boom, once the movie comes out, if there’s any success, then come out with that, but it’s sitting there. So anybody that wants to do animation, the first thing I’m going to do is say, hey, I’ve got this ready to tee up,” McFarlane said. “We could get their real fast, if we just take what’s in this box right now because I bought it all back,” McFarlane said.
The Unreleased Spawn Movie Features Keith David and Mark Hamill As Two Fan Favorites

One of the unexpected names in the unreleased Spawn film is Mark Hamill, who McFarlane revealed plays Twitch in the movie. What’s interesting is that while Hamill has become a legend in the animation world, McFarlane remembers some challenges in the first recording session due to not wanting Hamill to do a voice, but just wanting Hamill’s actual voice in the role.
“Yes, and Mark Hamill. Let me tell you the Mark Hamill story. So Mark Hamill plays Twitch. He’s one of the detectives, right, and that’s so cool, but Mark Hamill, like I’m going way back. I’m sure you remember, this is when he’s just starting to do animated voiceover,” McFarlane said. “And he’s sitting in the booth, and he starts doing his animated stuff, and I’m like, no, that’s not it. You just need to relax, and basically I was hiring actors to act and then he’d do his me, me, me. And it was like, no, no, I just need you. And after about 15 minutes of me rejecting him, right, finally he just went, oh my God, Todd. So what do you want me to do? And I’m like, that’s the voice.”
“He’s like, that’s my regular voice in my mind. That’s what I’ve been saying. I just want you to act. I didn’t hire you for a cute voice. I hired you, Mark Hamill, to act this voice, like, just read the lines like you were an actor and a tired detective,” McFarlane said. “Yeah, and I played him, like, a few messages from a lawyer. I knew that was sort of a little bit melancholy when he talked. Yeah, and I go, if you want to slow it down a little bit, and then he went, ‘so I just talk like me. That’s it’, and he nailed it after that. That was easy because I’m just, I’m being Mark. All right. Ding ding ding ding ding ding.”
As for Spawn himself, there’s one person who is synonymous with the role, and that’s Keith David. Thankfully, David reprised his role in the unreleased movie, and if there’s a chance for it to release down the road, he has made it clear he’s up for returning.
“Keith has always said that he, he’s a very gracious man that would always come back and do animated. So again, if at any form, anytime we were ever to sort of update any of the animation, then of course the first phone call goes to him, right. I mean, he’s Kevin Conroy to Batman, right? It’s like when I read Spawn, now I hear Keith’s voice,” McFarlane said. “I mean, when he did, like, the two things a lot of people know him for are Spawn and Gargoyles, but every time I heard him doing Gargoyles, which came after Spawn, I go just Spawn in a kid cartoon. That’s cool.”
Hopefully we’ll get to see this movie released sooner rather than later, because more animated Spawn is always a good thing.
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