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Jason Smilovic is an American writer and executive producer, as well as the creator of the television series Karen Sisco, Kidnapped, My Own Worst Enemy, and Condor. He also wrote the film Lucky Number Slevin .
Jun 10, 2021 · As Spawn nears its 30th anniversary, the fan-favorite hardboiled detective duo Sam and Twitch are poised to star in their own television series. Developed by Mare of Easttown producers Jason Smilovic and Todd Katzberg, the project will hail from independent studio Wiip and McFarlane Films, with Spawn creator Todd McFarlane serving as an ...
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Jun 10, 2021 · Jason Smilovic and Todd Katzberg (perhaps best known as the creators and showrunners for Epix’s Condor) will adapt the project, and serve as executive producers. McFarlane and Sean Canino...
- Matt Grobar
Jun 10, 2021 · The indie studio wiip is teaming on the project, with Jason Smilovic and Todd Katzberg penning the adaptation. The duo are known as the showrunners of Condor, the Epix adaptation of the 1975...
- While we wait for his Spawn film, Todd McFarlane is developing a TV series based on a couple of its best-known spinoff characters.
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By Mike Avila
Updated: Oct 22, 2021 12:04 am
Posted: Jun 10, 2021 4:25 pm
Spawn’s universe is expanding beyond comics into television.
Spawn creator Todd McFarlane is teaming up with production house wiip, the studio behind HBO’s hit Kate Winslet-starring Mare of Easttown series, to create a television series based on the supernatural detective comic Sam & Twitch. Jason Smilovic and Todd Katzberg, showrunners on the EPIX series Condor and writers on the upcoming Jennifer Lopez Netflix film The Cipher will adapt the project and serve as executive producers, as will McFarlane for McFarlane Films and wiip's Paul Lee and Mark Roybal.
The announcement is just the latest in a series of headline-grabbing moves by McFarlane in recent months, and as he tells IGN, it won’t be the last. “Oh no. This will not be our only announcement in the near future. Let me just say that.”
He had been talking with wiip since talks resumed about Sam & Twitch last year, as they were shooting Mare of Easttown.
“Every time I was talking to them, they kept saying, ‘We’re shooting our show up in Pennsylvania.’ And when he said the name of the show, I thought he said ‘mayor,’” McFarlane recalls. “Anyway, when it finally rolled out, I gave it a gander. Oh my God. I remember sending Mark Roybal an e-mail going, ‘If Sam & Twitch can be half this good, we're going to be in great shape.’ The cinematography, the acting, the story, the colors, the movement just felt… it was just a good, entertaining drama. And I was like, that's it.”
Having Smilovic and Katzberg on to helm the adaptation only bolstered McFarlane’s enthusiasm. For one, he’s a big fan of War Dogs, the 2016 film starring Jonah Hill and Miles Teller that Smilovic co-wrote. And then there’s the fact that no matter how many TV shows and films he may be involved with, McFarlane remains a comics geek at heart. And this teaming exemplifies that.
“Well, first off, if you just call them by their first names, they’re a great comic book character – Jason Todd. So they already had big brownie points on my side for that,” McFarlane jokes. He also saw some broad similarities between the main characters in War Dogs and his homicide cops. “I sort of saw Sam & Twitch in that movie a little bit, except they were obviously younger versions. But you have two guys in over their head, and nobody's going to come and help them.”
The popular characters were created by McFarlane and made their debut appearance way back in Spawn #1 in 1992, before eventually getting their own spinoff comic book series. Due to various publishing delays, the series only produced 26 issues over a four-year span. One of the most famous comics scribes around these days, Brian Michael Bendis, cut his teeth writing Sam & Twitch before leaving to go write Ultimate Spider-Man for Marvel. And now, the pair are in the pipeline to become the next comic book characters turned TV stars.
But McFarlane says he was adamant in discussions with Smilovic and Katzberg to not feel burdened to adhere closely to the source comics material. “I told them not to be loyal to anything specific to the mythology of Spawn. Just keep the big pieces intact,” he says.
He also says he has no delusions about his involvement if the Sam & Twitch show happens. Unlike the Spawn movie, which McFarlane has remained adamant about directing, he’s happy to step back and let the production studio and the showrunners lead the way. “My job here isn't to say, ‘Here's my top things. Let's do it,’” he says. “Especially if somebody is putting up millions of dollars, right? They’ve got a big giant say in how they want that money to be spent. I've been on the other end of that in my life, where people have come to me and said, “Hey, we're going to give you some freedom, go have some fun and create.’
“Essentially that’s what Marvel did to me when they gave me my own Spider-Man book. It made my career,” he recalls. “I was able to try some things and experiment a little bit with the character. So I always want to do the same thing. I’ll tell these guys if there's stuff that exists that they think is useful, use it. If there's something that you want to try, that's new, you know what, let's discuss it and have at it. Don't be intimidated or afraid that somehow I'm gonna shoot it down or that there's only one way to do it right. I'm in the cool drama business. If you deliver a cool drama to me, I'm not going to pick apart the details. My notes are going to be, can this be cooler? Can these be more dramatic? Can you make it cooler? That's it.”
- Mike Avila
Jun 10, 2021 · Jason Smilovic and Todd Katzberg, who created the TV show Conder, will adapt the project and serve as executive producers.
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The series stars Max Irons. The series was created by Todd Katzberg, Jason Smilovic, and Ken Robinson and premiered on June 6, 2018 on Audience. In July 2018, the series had been renewed for a second season, although in January 2020, Audience announced it would be ending operations in its current format. [1]
