Why Sony Needs To Let Venom Go

Another day, another comic book movie. This time, Sony announced Venom, a standalone film about Spider-Man’s alien symbiote foe who inherited Gene Simmons’ tongue. Even more surprising is, it’s scheduled to arrive in October 2018, proving once again that Sony prefers the cart to pull the horse.

As stated in an official press release back in 2015, “Sony Pictures will continue to finance, distribute, own and have final creative control of the Spider-Man films.” In other words, it also owns the cinematic rights to Venom and all the other villains, like Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus and Rhino.

While Marvel and Sony are likely to work closely and have spoken about the potential of “cross-pollinating” characters from the web slinger’s universe, chances are Sony has first dibs on the slobbering antihero here – especially since Marvel Studios got to showcase Tom Holland’s Spidey first. But Spider-Man: Homecoming hasn’t even been released, so why are we even talking about Venom so early?

Considering how Sony messed up the last attempt at an extended Spider-Man universe, the signs don’t look promising here. Also, since it’s Hollywood, whether the film’s actually released or not is a different story, but maybe it’s high time that Sony gives up on this Spidey spinoff dream, and here’s why.