A shapeless-yet-sentient and malevolent mass of alien goo falls to earth with malevolent intentions. Is it the plot of Sony’s upcoming science fiction thriller Life? Yes it is. But it’s also the origin story of Venom, the most iconic nemesis of Marvel’s Spider-Man. But Venom is a popular antihero in his own right and Sony looks ready to capitalize on this by giving the hulking hybrid of extraterrestrial entity and man a film of his own with a release date of October 5 2018.
Plot details are scarce and reports of directors and writers are contradictory, but it seems likely that Spidey’s black-clad foil is being set up to helm his own franchise and the recent success of Logan and Deadpool means an R-rating is a realistic possibility. Appropriate, given Venom’s brutal nature.
Attempts have been made to get a Venom standalone film off the ground ever since the character made his cinematic debut in 2007’s Spider-Man 3, with script writers such as Alex Kurzman, Robert Orci, and even Deadpool scribe Rhett Reese having been involved. The project finally seems to have legs now, though, and the October 5th 2018 release date seems like Sony capitalizing on a golden opportunity created by Warner Bros. moving their Aquaman film from that date to December of that year. Spider-Man will see the light of the silver screen again before his foe, however, with Spider-Man:Homecoming starring Tom Holland hitting theaters this July.
In the meantime, there’s still Life to look forward to for the fulfillment of alien slime cravings. In fact, there’s even a fan theory going around that Life could actually serve as a Venom prequel! This bizarre and beautiful theory can be studied, like so many other bizarre and beautiful internet things, in the world of Reddit.
