9 Big Predictions About Sony’s Spider-Man Universe
A new hero entirely?
Spider-Man is up to his neck in MCU affairs, but Sony is spinning a spider web of its own, with Venom, Black Cat and Silver Sable already caught up in it.
Although the studio has loaned Peter Parker back to parent company Marvel Studios, that hasn't put the kibosh on its ambitions to build a SpiderVerse populated by members of the superhero's supporting cast.
The shared cinematic universe will begin to take shape next October when Tom Hardy's Venom arrives in cinemas, and it will be followed in early 2019 by Silver & Black, a female-centric team-up starring Black Cat and Silver Sable.
For a film with a 50 Shades of Grey writer attached, Venon is shaping up rather well, or at least its cast is, with The Night Of star Riz Ahmed, Michelle Williams, Scott Haze and Reid Scott set to join Hardy in an impressive line-up.
Silver & Black, meanwhile, has bagged itself a talented director in the shape of Gina Prince-Bythewood, which makes her the latest female filmmaker to tackle the subject of superheroism, a trend which harks back to Patty Jenkins and Wonder Woman.
Nobody knows where Sony's SpiderVerse might be heading after Silver & Black, but since it has almost six decades of comic lore to draw from, the possibilities are many.
9. Venom Will Adapt The Lethal Protector Storyline
Rumours should always be taken with the proverbial grain of salt, but here's one you can file under 'entirely plausible'.
The folks at OmegaUnderground recently reported that Tom Hardy's Venom will be based on the Lethal Protector storyline, a six-issue Marvel Comics series which dates back to 1993, and this would be the ideal arc to draw from.
It was a landmark story for Venom as it saw him transition from all-out villain to anti-hero after striking up a deal with Spider-Man, and later teaming up with Marvel's web-slinger to take down a common threat.
Now, streamlining and surgery would be needed to remove any traces of Spidey from the source material, but a loose, Peter Parker-free adaptation should work just fine.
The whole point of the arc is Eddie Brock finding redemption, and he doesn't necessarily need Spider-Man for that. This would still make Venom an origin film of sorts, though not in the traditional sense.
This is the perfect basis for the film as most cinemagoers with little to no experience of the comics will only know the character from his poorly-received screen debut in Spider-Man 3. Revealing how he shifted from darkness to anti-heroism would effectively give them a crash course in all things symbiotic.