After much speculation, Jeremy Renner has signed on to play Twitch Williams in the Todd McFarlane-directed Spawn reboot of the comic book series he created. In a statement provided to Deadline, McFarlane explained that the goal when he set out to bring Spawn back to the theaters was to "surround myself with the most talent and the most skilled people I can on all fronts.” The first chip fell when Blumhouse, the production company behind breakout films like Get Out, Split and the upcoming Spike Lee joint BlacKkKlansman, got involved with the project in July 2017.
Once McFarland finished the script, he was determined to get Jamie Foxx, who approached him about an idea for Spawn five years ago, to play the titular role. "I'm going to Jamie first and until he says no I don’t want to think about anyone else because I’ve never had anyone else in my head," McFarland recalls. "Luckily, he hadn’t forgotten either. I said, 'Hey, I’m back to talk about Spawn again, and he was like, let’s do it.'" And now it's happening."
When McFarland thought about who could take on the character of Twitch, he wanted to swing for the fences, starting with Renner. "I was lucky enough to land Jason Blum and then Jamie Foxx, and I knew the person on screen the most is this police officer, Twitch Williams," he said. "We needed as strong a person as possible because he will be the face of the film. I took my naïve Hollywood approach again, and said let’s start at the top and work down. Jeremy was at the top. I’m a huge fan of his. The character doesn’t need to be a bodybuilder or GQ handsome. I was looking for somebody who’s a person you’ve met before; I needed someone who can pull off the grief of an average human being. I’ve seen Jeremy do that in more than a few of his movies. He was at the top of my list, just like Jamie."
According to The Hashtag Show, the reboot will focus more on the relationship between Twitch and Spawn as they "track down some baddies and dish out a special kind of vengeance." The film is slated for a 2019 release.
