Venom director reckons Tom Holland's Spider-Man will battle Tom Hardy's symbiotic antihero
"That's where it's all going to lead," Ruben Fleischer told Fandom.
Tom Holland's Spider-Man and Tom Hardy's Venom will clash on the silver screen, according to Venom director Ruben Fleischer. He told Fandom that he suspects Sony Pictures is "building towards" the confrontation between the two.
"And that's the exciting thing, because we changed the origin of Venom," he said. "In the comics, he evolved from Spider-Man but because of the Marvel-Sony thing we weren't able to that."
Even though Venom is closely linked to Spidey in the comics (the symbiotic suit that gives Venom his abilities was previously worn by the webslinger), the antihero's 2018 solo movie removed that element. This was a result of Sony -- which owns the cinematic rights for Spidey and his villains -- making a deal with the Disney-owned Marvel Studios, which let the hero join the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Venom wasn't part of that deal and the character's movie wasn't connected to the MCU.
The deal expired with Spider-Man: Far From Home, and the Sony-Marvel relationship was temporarily severed after Disney sought a greater cut of box office revenue from future Spider-Man films. Far From Home made $1 billion at the box office, becoming Sony's highest-grossing movie of all time.
The studios reached a new deal last month, but we don't know if Venom was a part of it.
We do know that there's another Venom movie coming, and Fleischer will hand over directing duties to Andy Serkis (of Lord of the Rings and Mowgli fame), so we might see hints about Spidey in the sequel. At the very least, we'll presumably see more of the villain from the postcredits scene.
Of course, different incarnations of Spidey and Venom already battled back in 2007's Spider-Man 3, but that movie left many fans disappointed in part because director Sam Raimi wasn't a big believer in the character.
Sony didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.