Sony Announces Tom Hardy As Venom For Stand-Alone Film

Sony has posted on Twitter that actor Tom Hardy, who you might remember as Bane from the Nolan Dark Knight Rises Batman movie, will be taking on the role of Venom in an upcoming stand-alone movie. Production will start this fall and the movie is slated with a October 5, 2018 release date.

Tom Hardy is Eddie Brock in #Venom, the upcoming film from Sony’s Marvel Universe releasing October 5, 2018 – production starts this fall. pic.twitter.com/OZQqDEvoum

— Sony Pictures (@SonyPictures) May 19, 2017

In the comics, the character of Venom has been both villain and hero. It's unknown which version we will see on the big screen. The image of Venom seen on Hardy's shirt in the tweet above would indicate it will be the original Eddie Brock villain version. In the comics Brock was a disgraced news photographer who blamed Spider-Man for all of his troubles, and ended up bonding with an alien symbiot that shared a mutual hatred for the wall-crawler. Sharing similar powers to Spider-Man, with the addition of being stronger and having the ability to circumvent Spider-Man's renowned spider-sense, Venom quickly became a major thorn in Spider-Man's back.

There have been rumors that Sony might go for an R rating with this movie. It is also unclear if this movie will be directly tied to the Tom Holland Spider-Man/MCU universe, or be something totally separate. We will be sure to update you once we know more. Thanks to Dimitris for the heads up about the Sony tweet.