While fans continue waiting for Todd McFarlane‘s long-promised live-action Spawn reboot, it turns out there’s another project that’s much closer to becoming a reality.

Much closer.

Speaking with ComicBook.com during San Diego Comic-Con, the Spawn creator revealed that he has a nearly completed 90-minute animated Spawn feature sitting in a box, fully voiced by Keith David and Mark Hamill, just waiting for the right opportunity to be finished and released.

The revelation came when McFarlane was asked whether he’d ever consider continuing HBO’s beloved Spawn animated series through comics, similar to DC’s Batman ’89 and Superman ’78. Instead, he explained that he’d much rather continue the story on screen.

“We were in the process of developing the return of this Spawn animation a while back,” McFarlane said. “And then… I got in a fight at the very end with the production and the lawyer, so I just bought it all back.”

That’s when he dropped the bombshell.

“So I actually have a 90-minute animated show that’s all been drawn, minus the cels. All the voices have been done. Everything… 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. It’s just been sitting in a box waiting to go.”

McFarlane explained that he’s intentionally been holding the project back while focusing on getting the long-gestating live-action Spawn movie made.

“I have just been sitting on that going, no, I think I need to get the movie out, and then boom, once the movie comes out, if there’s any success, then come out with that,” he said. “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.'”

One of the biggest surprises is that the film reunites two of the most beloved voices from HBO’s groundbreaking animated series.

Mark Hamill reprises his role as Detective Twitch, though McFarlane admitted getting the performance he wanted wasn’t as simple as bringing the actor into the recording booth. Hamill initially leaned into the exaggerated style he was becoming known for in animation, but McFarlane kept stopping him.

“I didn’t hire you for a cute voice,” McFarlane recalled telling the actor. “I hired you, Mark Hamill, to act this voice… just read the lines like you were an actor and a tired detective.”

After about 15 minutes of back and forth, Hamill finally asked what McFarlane actually wanted.

“So I just talk like me. That’s it.”

That was exactly what McFarlane had been after.

Even better news for longtime fans is that Keith David also returned to voice Spawn. McFarlane said David has always been willing to come back to the role and would be the first person he’d call for any future animated project. He even compared David’s connection to Spawn to Kevin Conroy‘s legendary relationship with Batman, admitting that whenever he reads a Spawn comic today, he hears David’s voice in his head.

For fans who grew up watching HBO’s Spawn in the late ’90s, that’s about as perfect an endorsement as it gets.

Whether this long-lost animated sequel ever sees the light of day remains to be seen, but the fact that a nearly complete 90-minute feature has been quietly sitting in McFarlane’s possession all these years is one of the biggest surprises to come out of Comic-Con.

Tags: Keith David Mark hamill Spawn Todd McFarlane

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