With Spider-Man: Homecoming dropping a new trailer earlier on Tuesday, plenty of attention is being paid to the web-slinger and his entrance into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The same can’t be said for his black, anti-hero “nemesis” Venom and his own solo film over at Sony. The film is currently slated for a 2018 release, but it doesn’t seem like it’s going to take place anywhere near Marvel’s film universe. In fact, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to connect to Spider-Man at all. According to Fandango, Homecoming director Jon Watts shoots down any crossover between the current Spider-Man and his slimy foe:
It’s not. It’s not connected to the Marvel world, so that’s really intriguing… what that will be. I don’t know anything about it. It’s not connected, so there’s not that overlap. I’m only focused on my movie right now.
I don’t know if that means Spider-Man can’t be connected at all. They could very well pull some sort of Deadpool and make it completely bonkers, but that’s likely a longshot. Not having it connected to Marvel is understandable given the scope of those films now, but it’s going to be weird having Venom or any of those other Spider-Man villain movies without the Peter Parker component. Will we get Miles Morales? We they just make Venom the main guy? Will any of it matter in the slightest? Who knows.
What is known is that the film is going to be Rated-R and it’s rumored to feature a director that could be familiar to fans of those high-quality unofficial fan movies online according to Splash Report:
Best known as a producer, Adi Shankar has worked on feature films like the fan-favorite Dredd, The Grey and Lone Survivor and he’s independently produced “bootleg” superhero shorts like Dirty Laundry (featuring Thomas Jane’s The Punisher) and the insanely dark Power/Rangers that took the web by storm two years ago.
Dirty Laundry was a fine follow-up to Tom Jane’s Punisher and he’s already had his hands in the Venom pot with the bootleg Truth In Journalism. The issue, as pointed out by Slash Film, is that Shankar isn’t a sure thing for the job and it should be taken with a grain of salt. Also, he’s played more of a producing role it seems as opposed to directing each of these clips.
That said, his take on Eddie Brock and Venom is a route to take if Spider-Man and Marvel are out of the picture. You just have to hope that Sony and the creatives aren’t just trying to push this film because they can. That sorta thing hasn’t worked out well in the past and is one of the reasons they made the deal with Marvel over Spider-Man in the first place.
(Via Slash Film / Splash Report / Fandango)