Tom Hardy On For Spider-Man Spin-off Venom, With Ruben Fleischer Set To Direct

Tom Hardy sure seems to like his comic book movies. After playing Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, he very nearly played Rick Flagg in Suicide Squad, until overruns on shooting The Revenant forced him to back out. Now he’s planning a return to the comic book world, as Variety reports that he’s set to star in Sony’s planned Spider-man spin-off, Venom.

The ‘alien symbiote that needs a human host to survive’ was introduced to movie audiences in Spider-man 3, but it left fans rather disappointed in how it was used and certainly didn’t leave viewers wanting more, despite how popular the character is in the Marvel comics. Not much has been revealed about the new film’s take on Venom. In the comics he’s generally been a supervillain, but it’s likely he’ll become more antihero for the movie.

Scott Rosenberg (“Jumanji”) and Jeff Pinkner (“The Dark Tower”) will write the script, with Zombieland’s Ruben Fleischer recently coming on board to direct. The whole thing will have to come together quickly, as Sony wants to release the movie during October 2018.