Sony has barely “rebooted” Spider-Man and already it’s tackling two other phases of franchising at once—the spin-off quasi-sequel—with a movie focused on Venom. The L.A. Times reports that the studio is considering developing a Venom film with Chronicle director Josh Trank, whose unique take on the standard superhero movie has, in grand Hollywood tradition, made him in-demand for all kinds of producers who want him to make a standard superhero movie now, whether it’s this or that Fantastic Four reboot.
Like that project, Venom has actually been gestating for a while before Trank’s name popped up: Before moving onto The Hunger Games, Gary Ross was briefly attached to the idea back in 2009, developing a script that would cast Spider-Man’s inky opposite as more of an anti-hero than a straight-up villain. (That screenplay has since been abandoned.) And of course, Venom was also part of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, where he became just one of too many subplots by first transforming Tobey Maguire into Pete Wentz and then moving on to Topher Grace. While the LAT makes it (probably unnecessarily) clear that Grace will not return, it also doesn’t say how Venom will connect to the upcoming The Amazing Spider-Man, if at all. Perhaps Venom will come to Earth looking to attach himself to Spider-Man, only to be constantly told that he just missed him.