McFarlane had actually written a treatment for the movie, originally intended to be more of a low-budget feature that he felt was "grounded" compared to the previous endeavor over 20 years ago. He explained why this version didn't work and how Jason Blum helped bring on the assistance.
"I had written a script and put it under the nose of some people and it was just getting lukewarm reactions to it. So at that point, you can improve your script or get somebody else to do it, especially somebody who has a better track record than you," McFarlane said. "So [producer] Jason Blum the producer knew Scott and he was just coming off of Joker. He's ultra-talented and has proved that R-rated comic book stuff works."
The comic book icon did express some concern over how the team will bring in the drama for the movie but doesn't want to repeat what he's done before with how he's presented the character. He went on to say that nobody else on the team wants that either.
"I'm more concerned [about whether] if he and Malcolm can do the drama. I know they can do the comic book stuff, but everybody wants to do something different where superhero movies are concerned here. Nobody on our team wants to do a $200M special effects extravaganza. I've done that move. I've seen that movie."
