UPDATE: We’re now learning that Alex Kurtzman, who penned The Amazing Spider-Man 2, will direct the film.
Earlier today, Warner Bros. decided to move James Wan’s Aquaman from its October 5th, 2018 release date, instead placing it on December 21st of that same year. Seeing an opportunity to strike, Sony has now announced that they’ve snatched up the fall date for their Spider-Man spinoff, Venom.
At the moment, that’s all we have to go on, as no director as been announced as of yet. We’re also unsure of it will have any ties to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, though we imagine that it won’t. After all, the studio will probably want to head down an R-rated route after the success of Logan and Deadpool and given the nature of the titular character, that definitely makes sense. Not only that, but the involvement of Amazing Spider-Man producers Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach also signals that this film won’t have anything to do with the MCU.
What we can tell you with certainty is that Venom is set to be a franchise starter for the studio and the last person to take a crack at the script was Dante Harper. We assume that it’ll now get a re-write but there’s no word yet on how the studio is planning to proceed from here. All we have set in stone is the release date. With that now locked in, though, we expect to start hearing more about the spinoff soon.
/Film points out something quite interesting, too, as they bring to a light a fan theory doing the rounds on the web. Take it with a grain of salt, but Reddit seems to think that Sony’s upcoming sci-fi thriller Life is actually a prequel for Venom. If you’re curious to learn more, you can read all about it here. There’s probably not much truth to it, but it’s interesting to think about and in this day and age, you never really know…