“Venom” Film Franchise Finds New Footing
Just when you thought you
could sleep better at night knowing Marvel
had some creative voice with
Spider-Man again, your nightmares are
coming back
to haunt you.
Producers Avi Arad, who has been guiding
Spider-Man for
Sony Pictures
since 2002, and Matt Tolmach, who jumped aboard with The
Amazing Spider-
Man back in 2012, are
reportedly looking to fill Sony’s
franchise void. The
Hollywood Reporter broke
the
story about the spin off franchise. Venom has no release date
as of yet but has been green-lit
for the scripting phase once again. Venom first
served as a formidable foe
to Spider-Man before turning into
an anti-hero in the
1990’s (though lately is bound to Flash Thompson as a
government agent).
Sony’s
attempts to launch a Venom spinoff has been a project mired by a
creative
carousel of writers and directors
in the last few years. The latest
names involved include Josh Trank, who
moved over to Fantastic
Four at
Fox (enough said), as well as the writing duo of Roberto Orci
and Alex Kurtzman,
who split
apart in 2015. No director is in talks yet, but screenwriter Dante
Harper
has been commissioned to work on
the latest draft.
Before you ask
– no, Venom is not part of
the forthcoming inclusion of
Spider-Man into
the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Instead, the potential new
movie will serve as a
non-
connecting franchise but able to use supporting characters from the Spider-
Man canon.
In case you’ve
forgotten, it was just last year that
Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures
hopped into bed together to bring Peter Parker and other Spider-Man
characters
into the ever-growing
Marvel Cinematic Universe. The move was considered a first
for rival
Hollywood studios and could ultimately
shape similar deals down the
road. (You hear the fans yet, Fox?) Neither
studio will get financial benefits
from the other’s releases, but instead will work together creatively to
include
Spider-Man into the
bigger picture. Both will collaborate together to include
Peter Parker into
the MCU with one clear creative
vision. It’s a win-win for
both sides – and the legion of
fans.
We’ll first get to see Tom Holland
(who can do his own acrobatic stunts!) as the new Spidey in this May’s
Captain America: Civil War
before getting his own solo movie. The
second, and thankfully final,
relaunching of Spider-Man is due to
theaters in
July 2017 from director Jon Watts and scripted by John Francis
Daley &
Jonathan M.
Goldstein.
Jerrold spent his childhood in southeastern Pennsylvania ingesting far too many TV shows and movies, thus creating a stark-raving mad geek. He’s a movie aficionado, binge-watches Netflix, and is a total TV junkie. His addiction has led to an unhealthy and rabid obsession of various geek pantheons – Star Trek, Star Wars, both DC *AND* Marvel,
cult 80’s and 90’s television, Supernatural, The X-Files, Doctor Who, and, and…holy overload. He’s still waiting to run away in a 1967 Impala or a blue police box.