With all of the confusion around the whole Marvel/Sony Spider-Man deal, fans were less than excited about the Venom movie, even though none other than Tom Hardy will portray Eddie Brock and Ruben Fleischer will direct. The news that Venom will be rated R, which suits this supervillain, didn’t even get much of a reaction at the time.
But today, following a discussion with Sony chairman Tom Rothman, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that the film will feature Carnage, although they didn’t say whether he’ll be the main antagonist:
As for the expansion plans, Tom Hardy is starring in Venom, dated for Oct. 5, 2018, which will also feature the villain Carnage.
And that’s not all. The report also shed some light on the Marvel/Sony deal. As Tom Holland explained, Marvel can use Spider-Man in its movies until the third film, which we’ll call Homecoming 3, is released.
At the same time, Sony still has the right to use the character in its spin-offs. So Amy Pascal was right, in spite of Kevin Feige's apparent confusion:
Holland is only contractually obligated to Spider-Man 2 and 3, but the intention is to bring him into the spin-offs and possibly other Marvel films (he is currently shooting Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War).
Furthermore, the latter reveal debunked the rumor that Sony is building an all-female SpiderVerse. Which is"¦we can't really say. On one hand, we actually would have loved to see how this universe might have looked. On the other hand, you can't have Venom without Spider-Man.
What do you think? Do these reveals change your mind about Sony's plans? We definitely want them to make the Venom movie. After all, despite Feige’s remarks, we don't believe that Spider-Man would have clashed with this supervillain in an R-rated MCU flick.
Venom is scheduled to shoot this fall, and will be released on the 5th of October 2018.