The folks over at The Playlist have an interesting exclusive on a topic that's been getting several headlines this week. According to their inside source, Gary Ross, the man who was just announced to write and possibly direct the Venom spinoff will not be working on that project next.

Instead, Ross will first be taking over the Matt Helm project from Steven Spielberg and it sounds like the Venom project is quite a ways off, despite earlier reports that had him starting on it after Spider-Man 4.

Matt Helm was a James Bond-esque franchise starring Dean Martin back in the 1960s and they've been trying to get a remake off the ground for a while with a messy development history in recent years. There was also a TV series in the 1970s also based on the novels written by Donald Hamilton. There are 27 books in the series, allowing for wide selection of material for the movie and possible sequels.

Who will star in the Matt Helm movie that's hoped to spawn a new franchise? Well, after George Clooney passed and John Hamm fell through, it now sounds like Bradley Cooper (The Hangover) is the leading candidate. This role would certainly replace the missed opportunity of the growing star not getting cast as the lead in Green Lantern. With this role and The A-Team, Cooper could be one of the next big action stars.

If this all goes according to the reported plan, Venom won't be around for a while, so how will Venom tie into the Spider-Man franchise?

Will it completely run its own course with no cross-over? I doubt it. The studio will want to use every available resource to make sure they bank as much coin as possible from the symbiotic anti-hero. Since the character of Venom has far less mass appeal than Spider-Man and since Gary Ross is involved in the scripts for both films, it's fair to assume they will tie it into one of the Spider-Man films.

My guess is that since we know Spider-Man 5 & 6 are desired by Sony Pictures to speed into production after Spider-Man 4, and since Venom is not next up on Ross' plate, perhaps the post-Spidey 4 interconnected films will act as a franchise reboot where they can have another chance at introducing the character, leading him into his own spin-off. After all, we reported yesterday that Raimi hinted that they're not selecting Spider-Man 4 villains based on its previous movies or based on what spinoffs are in planning.

What do you make of news and how do you think Venom will fit into the Spider-Man world?

More as we hear it on all of these projects, at Screen Rant!

Source: The Playlist