The Venom Movie Will Push The Boundaries Spider-Man Can't

While it has not yet been set on the release date calendar, Sony Pictures is in fact making a Venom movie set in the world of The Amazing Spider-Man. The project was announced at the same time as Drew Goddard's in-development Sinister Six film, and while we don't know much about it outside of the fact that it's being written and directed by Alex Kurtzman, it is indeed being made. It will probably be a while until we actually hear any firm big details about the movie, so at this point we are latching on to anything we can find. Take, for example, Kurtzman's recent comments about what we can expect both in terms of the portrayal of the titular anti-hero character and the tone of the feature.

Speaking with MTV at an event for his upcoming CBS show Scorpion, Kurtzman dug into what we can expect to see from a Venom movie - in a very vague way - and even provided some insight to some of the impetus behind the film. Explained the director,

"Venom, in a weird way, is the representation of every line that will get crossed. He's a much darker character. wouldn't even say more complicated because they're both very complicated characters. But I think the attraction for me to Venom was the idea that you can do things that you can't do with Spider-Man."

Anyone familiar with the character of Venom is probably nodding in agreement with this statement right now. Born from an alien symbiote that latches on to a host body and brings out their darkest qualities, Venom is a tremendously scary, dangerous character in Spider-Man comics, and one of the hero's all-time biggest threats (it helps that the symbiote also knows all of the wall-crawler's dirty little secrets, including the fact that he is Peter Parker, and possesses all of the same powers). But while he was introduced as a villain in the Marvel Comics world, Venom has also been known to occasionally fight for the side of good - especially when his psychotic spawn Carnage is involved:

Venom vs. Carnage

Rumors have suggested that Carnage will be a part of the Venom movie, but what we still don't know is exactly which incarnation of the eponymous character we're going to see. The most famous Venom host is Eddie Brock and would be the most obvious choice, but it's possible that producers may balk at that because of his much maligned presence in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3 (played by Topher Grace). If we're looking at the history of comics, could it possibly be Mac Gargan who ends up covered in the evil black goop? What about Flash Thompson, who has already been introduced in the Amazing Spider-Man universe and is being played by Chris Zylka?

Venom doesn't currently have a release date, but you can be sure we'll keep updating you as more information arrives about the project.

Eric Eisenberg
Assistant Managing Editor

Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.