Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Entertainment
  3. News

Sony's 'Venom' movie may have no director, but it's now set for release in 2018

By

venom
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Sony Pictures has tried to get a movie about Spider-Man’s popular nemesis Venom off the ground for almost 10 years now, but apparently the studio is feeling pretty confident these days about the project, as the film was just given an October 2018 release date.

Just after Warner Bros. Pictures announced that it was moving the premiere date for Aquaman from October 5 to December 21, Sony claimed the October date for Venom — a project that most industry experts didn’t even realize was still being developed. The announcement also revealed the movie’s writing team.

Recommended Videos

According to The Hollywood Reporter, screenwriters Scott Rosenberg (Pain & Gain) and Jeff Pinkner (The Amazing Spider-Man 2) penned the most recent draft of the film’s script. However, no director is attached to the project at this point — making the sudden announcement of a release date next year even more surprising.

Given the short time frame between now and October 5, 2018, Sony will likely have to move quickly on finding a director, finalizing the script, and putting a cast together in order to get cameras rolling in time to meet that deadline.

Sony’s announcement regarding Venom didn’t offer any details about the film’s plot or the direction the studio plans to take the character, who made his big-screen debut in 2007’s Spider-Man 3. With the latest version of Spider-Man firmly entrenched in Marvel’s cinematic universe, there’s a distinct possibility that this new incarnation of Venom might not be connected to the Spider-Man universe — which would seem a little strange, given the character’s ties to the famous webslinger.

First introduced (as an independent character) in a 1988 issue of The Amazing Spider-Man, Venom started off as a telepathically controlled, alien costume that Spider-Man’s alter ego, Peter Parker, acquired during an adventure on another planet. The costume eventually proved to be sentient, and after Peter discovered it trying to manipulate him, he rid himself of it — only to have it find another, all-too-willing host. The alien, which came to be known as a Symbiote, bonded with various characters over the years, giving them powerful abilities while also warping their minds due to its deadly obsession with Spider-Man.

With such a short timeline for Venom to go into production, we’ll likely hear more about the project in the near future. Until then, however, the new Spider-Man can be seen in July’s Spider-Man: Homecoming, and a new, animated feature from Sony hitting theaters December 21, 2018, will also feature the friendly neighborhood wall-crawler.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Rick Marshall
Rick Marshall
Former Digital Trends Contributor
A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…
The 10 best versions of Marvel’s Venom, ranked
Eddie Brock as Venom.

In 1988, Amazing Spider-Man writer David Michelinie and artist Todd McFarlane rocked Peter Parker's world with the introduction of Venom. While it's true that the genesis of the character began four years earlier because of the Secret Wars comic, it wasn't until Michelinie and McFarlane that Spider-Man's living alien costume was revealed to have joined with disgraced journalist Eddie Brock to get revenge on the man they both hated.

During the ensuing decades, Venom had a brief run as one of Spider-Man's most compelling villains. From there, Marvel decided to turn Venom into an anti-hero so it could put him in his own spinoff comics. That eventually led to Venom headlining his own movies in 2018 and 2021. Due to the actor's strike, Venom 3 has been pushed to 2025, but it is still coming.

Read more
One of 2023’s best-reviewed movies is now on Netflix. Here’s why you should watch it
The poster for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

Just under five months after it hit theaters, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has finally made its streaming debut on Netflix. The heavily-anticipated follow-up to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse did not disappoint as it became one of the top hits of the summer. Given its overwhelmingly positive reception from fans, it should be among the most popular movies on Netflix within its first 24 hours.

Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson co-directed the film from a script by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and Dave Callaham. Shameik Moore reprised his role as Miles Morales, with Hailee Steinfeld as Gwen Stacy, Brian Tyree Henry as Jeff Morales, Lauren Vélez as Rio Morales, Jake Johnson as Peter B. Parker, Jason Schwartzman as The Spot, and Oscar Isaac as Miguel O'Hara.

Read more
5 great movies starring wrestlers you have to watch right now
Roddy Piper in They Live.

Wrestlers crossing over to Hollywood is not a new phenomenon, although modern stars like Dwayne Johnson and John Cena have had a lot more success than most of their fellow wrestlers-turned-actors. But there just aren't that many great movies starring wrestlers, at least with wrestlers in the leading roles. For example, former WWE star Dave Bautista proved that he had comedy chops in Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, and he also had a great (yet brief) serious turn in Blade Runner 2049. However, none of Bautista's solo movies have really played to his strengths as an actor, and they've been largely forgettable.

There have even been a handful of great movies about wrestling, most notably The Wrestler and Fighting With My Family, that featured non-wrestlers playing wrestlers. But for our list of the five great movies starring wrestlers that you need to watch, we decided to stay away from movies about wrestling. And the wrestlers in these movies helped bring them to the next level.
The Princess Bride (1987)

Read more