Comic book creator Todd McFarlane has been promising an upcoming Spawn movie for many years now, and while it’s had its setbacks, it looks like a significant part of its development hell is coming to an end: King Spawn now has a completed script, and McFarlane and producer Jason Blum’s Blumhouse are beginning to meet with directors for the film.

The update comes two years after they commissioned a script from rising scribe Matt Mixon, Falcon and the Winter Soldier creator Malcolm Spellman, and Joker Oscar nominee and Joker: Folie A Deux writer Scott Silver. It’s unclear whether Jamie Foxx, who has long been attached to star, will still be involved.

The Spawn comics centre on a former black-ops agent who makes a deal with a demon after being betrayed and killed. McFarlane notes that, as they prepare to approach studios with their script, it helps that two of the year’s biggest tentpoles are R-rated.

“Deadpool is a fun R. Something like Joker 2 is a serious R. Our movie is going to be super serious and dark and gritty,” says McFarlane via THR. “It’s going to be an at times a heavy movie. If you like serious drama, with meaningful themes that are relevant and that may even some reflection of the world we live in, then this has a lot of those elements in it.”