Sony may have finally made nice with Marvel and allowed everyone’s favorite web-slinger, Spider-Man, to appear in the MCU, but the studio is still going to make Spidey movies of their own. On Thursday, Sony confirmed that a long-awaited spin-off movie focusing on one of Spider-Man’s most notorious villains, Venom, officially had a release date.
There was chatter about a solo Venom movie as recently as last year, but now Slashfilm reports that Venom is set to infect theaters on October 5, 2018. The movie, which Sony is reportedly eyeing as a franchise opportunity, will not be part of the MCU, and the villain won’t interact with Tom Holland’s Peter Parker. It’s unclear if there’s going to be a second Spider-Man played by a different actor swinging around or if Venom will truly be a solo outing.
Dante Harper, who wrote the screenplay for the upcoming Alien: Covenant, will pen the Venom script. Two of the producers behind Sony’s Amazing Spider-Man series, Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach, will produce the Venom film, though there aren’t many additional details yet.
Sony has wanted to make a movie centering around Venom, one of the most popular villains in Spidey’s rogues gallery, ever since the original Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach films. Originally introduced as an alien symbiote in an iconic 1988 comics storyline, Venom went on to become one of Marvel’s most X-treme villains. Such a violent, brutal villain could do well in the wake of R-rated superhero hits like Deadpool and Logan. Venom has been portrayed as an anti-hero before, but he’s back to being a bad guy in the current comics and is poised to infect the entire Marvel Universe in an upcoming event.
Oh shit, it's Venom.
This, interestingly, isn’t even the only bit of Sony and Venom news this week. A recent trailer for the studio’s forthcoming sci-fi thriller, Life, featured a shot of stock footage that also appeared in Spider-Man 3, leading Marvel fans to half-jokingly hope the movie was a secret Venom prequel.
Life 2 Venom will come out on October 5 of next year.
