A couple of years ago, it was easy to tell which superhero movie based on Marvel characters belonged to which franchise. Nowadays, seeing as Marvel Studios broke the mold with their partnership with Sony to get hold of Spider-Man, the lines have blurred. In particular, we’re not entirely clear what relationship Sony’s upcoming Spidey spinoff movies – for instance, Venom – have to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
According to one leading MCU filmmaker, however, it’s very simple: they’re not connected at all. Avengers: Infinity War co-director Joe Russo held a talk at his old school Iowa City High earlier this week and one of those in attendance asked him about the possibilities of Tom Hardy’s Venom tying into the MCU. His response was short and straight to the point: “No, that’s a Sony property.”
Seeing as they’re made by separate studios, you would think that it would be obvious that Venom and the MCU won’t share a common thread. However, because of how closely related Spider-Man and his arch-nemesis Eddie Brock usually are, fans are having trouble imagining Venom existing in a universe without the wall-crawler. Then again, the footage we’ve seen so far in the trailers has suggested that the alien symbiote’s backstory is simply being completely rewritten to remove any links to Peter Parker.
That said, those involved with the film have sort of encouraged the rumor that Venom is involved with Marvel Studios’ output. For one, Sony chief Amy Pascal even called the film “an adjunct” to the MCU. We’re not sure if she meant canonically, though, as Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige quickly backtracked on her statements. On the other hand, reports have claimed that Tom Holland will turn up for a cameo in Venom, so who knows?
All we can say for sure at the moment is that the marketing campaign has managed to turn the initially mixed fan reaction to the film around, as the recent trailer earned more views than Wonder Woman did in its first 24 hours. And we’ll finally find out exactly how – if at all – Venom relates to the MCU when the symbiote slithers into cinemas on October 5th.
