As Spawn creator Todd McFarlane continues to tease that second feature film based on the supernatural antihero, we now have news on a spinoff TV series that’s actually a lot closer to becoming a reality. According to Deadline, Kevin Smith is set to develop a police procedural for BBC America based on the exploits of NYPD homicide detectives, Sam and Twitch.
Sam Burke and Maximilian “Twitch” Williams were first introduced as tertiary characters in the pages of Spawn, but their popularity led to their own comic series in 1999. Though they obviously interacted with Al Simmons and the various other fantastical creatures that inhabited his world, their spinoff was a lot more grounded, so it’ll be interesting to see what kind of balance the TV adaptation strikes.
Here’s what BBC America president and general manager Sarah Barnett had to say about the news in a statement released earlier today:
They [Sam and Twitch] were originally introduced in Spawn, and it’s Todd McFarlane’s comic book series about these big-city homicide detectives who face a series of super grisly crimes that are connected to the occult. It’s kind of frightening and sort of gallows humor. It’s, again, procedural, but in a very modern, contemporary way. So each episode is closed ended, although there are certain character-serialized aspects to the storytelling.
Though Smith is best known as a filmmaker, he’s recently tried his hand at small screen projects as well, having helmed very successful installments of both The Flash and Supergirl – though this will almost certainly be a lot darker than those CW superhero shows.
Sam and Twitch is in the very early stages of development and doesn’t have a production start date yet, but we’ll be sure to keep you posted if any more details come our way. The R-rated Spawn movie, meanwhile, remains in development hell (no pun intended) for the time being.