Sony and Marvel have been working together over the last few years to ensure a bright future for Tom Holland's Spider-Man, but Sony isn't done with making Spider-centric movies on its own. More than a decade after Venom made his live action debut in Spider-Man 3, the symbiote-powered villain/anti-hero will be leading his own movie next year, and this time, his origin story will unfold without the Wall-Crawler's presence. The Venom movie has now kicked off principal photography, and here's how the production marked the beginning of this weeks-long journey.
Not every important moment in a film shoot happens with cameras around, as the above picture posted by the official Venom Twitter account shows. In this particular moment, lead actor Tom Hardy is just hanging out with two of the movie's other contributors as they presumably plan out what's coming up in the production, It's unclear who the other men with Hardy are (especially the center guy, given the weird lighting), though I suspect that one of them is director Ruben Fleischer. After all, he's the person who is overseeing this operation, so he'd be around for such a meeting.
Venom is the first movie coming out of Sony's Spider-Man spinoff franchise, with Silver & Black (which stars Silver Sable and Black Cat) also in development. Aside from Tom Hardy playing Eddie Brock/Venom and the movie showing how Eddie was overtaken by the symbiote (it hasn't been revealed yet if this version of the black goo creature will be an alien or an artificial creation), no official plot details have been revealed yet. However, Venom will reportedly be battling Cletus Kasady, a.k.a. Carnage, another symbiote-powered individual. Both Marvel characters are considered to be among Spider-Man's most dangerous enemies, but unlike Eddie, Cletus is a sociopathic killer with no moral compass, so their clash on the big screen will undoubtedly be intense.
Similar to the upcoming New Mutants, Venom will be a comic book movie with a horror bent, with Ruben Fleischer being directly influenced by the works of John Carpenter and David Cronenberg. Along with Tom Hardy, the main cast includes Riz Ahmed, Michelle Williams, Jenny Slate, Reid Scott and Scott Haze. None of their characters have been officially identified yet, although Williams is reportedly playing a district attorney who becomes romantically involved with Eddie Brock (I suspect this is Ann Weying), while Slate is reportedly playing a scientist.
Venom scares its way into theaters on October 5, 2018. As for when next year's other highly-anticipated blockbusters are being released, look through our 2018 movie guide to find that information.
