Venom Movie Was Always The Plan In Sony Email Leaks

The leaked Sony emails reveal that Venom hasn't changed quite as much over the years as we'd perhaps have believed. Avi Arad has been interested in developing a Venom movie for over a decade now, and his fondest dreams are finally coming true. On the surface, the film has changed shape substantially; after several attempts, by 2014 Sony envisioned the spinoff as part of Andrew Garfield's Amazing Spider-Man franchise. They initially hired Alex Kurtzman as director, but he was replaced by Ruben Fleischer. For all these changes, though, there's strong evidence that the overall shape of the movie has remained pretty much the same.

Sony was hacked back in Christmas 2014, and a wealth of email correspondence was dumped online. That included details of exec discussions about the future of the Spider-Man franchise, including details for more films in The Amazing Spider-Man series and even the proposed deal between Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures that would ultimately see the wall-crawler join the MCU. These leaked emails also hint at the studio's original ideas for Venom.

Here, we'll look at those basic ideas and show how they laid the foundation for the final theatrical cut of Venom. As we'll show, the core concept of Venom was established all the way back in 2014 - and the finished product seems very true to Sony's initial vision.

This Page: Sony's Original Plans for Venom
Next Page: 2018's Venom Is Still Part Of The Plan

Sony's Plans For A Spider-Less Venom In The Early 2010s

Avi Arad had always believed that Venom had the potential to be a box office hit for Sony. It was Arad who pushed Sam Raimi into introducing Venom in 2007's Spider-Man 3, and he publicly admitted to considering a possible spinoff film for the tongue-slavering symbiote. There was one simple reason Arad loved Venom: the symbiote is popular was with kids and teenagers. Arad was an executive producer on the 1990s Spider-Man animated series, and he'd noticed how the character seemed to resonate. As the years passed, his instincts continued to suggest that Venom would be a major win. In one email from early November 2014, Arad pointed to the Toys 'R' Us circulars as evidence; Disney Infinity's advertising featured Venom, and he cited that as evidence even Marvel and Disney knew the character appealed to a younger demographic.

By 2014, Arad and Amy Pascal were pushing for the Spider-Man franchise to change shape. Taking a tip from Marvel Studios, they aimed to create an entire cinematic universe centered around Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man. First up was a Sinister Six film, heavily set up in The Amazing Spider-Man 2; Sony planned that to be followed by a dedicated Venom movie, which they initially planning to release sometime in 2017. It would only be after these two movies that The Amazing Spider-Man 3 would release. The potential scale of the franchise is hinted at in an email from Juan Capdet. He proposed an ambitious slate of Spider-Man spinoffs, ranging from Venom to Kraven the Hunter to Black Cat. In his view, the movies should build up towards an Avengers-style crossover featuring Carnage as the main villain. However, it's unclear how seriously Sony took his suggestions; there's no email trail beyond the initial pitch, which was at least shared among key figures in the studio. Presumably, they took the discussions offline.

Venom was originally intended to link into the Amazing Spider-Man films, but with something of a modernized origin. Several Sony figures pointed to the Ultimate Comics version, where the Venom symbiote was a genetically engineered protoplasmic "suit" designed by Richard Parker and Eddie Brock Sr. Even at this stage, Arad was convinced that origin story could be sufficiently rewritten to remove Spider-Man. Pascal, for her part, wasn't so sure; she felt the symbiote's interaction with Peter Parker was a key part in its story. Interestingly, there are a couple of email threads in which Pascal told other Sony staff about Venom's supporting characters, most notably his ex-wife Ann Weying and Flash Thompson's Agent Venom. Sony clearly felt both these characters had some sort of potential.

Page 2: 2018's Venom Is Still True To Sony's Plan

Venom Is Now The Launch of the Spider-Villains Universe (But Was Always Part Of It)

It's actually quite remarkable how little Sony's plans for Venom have changed since those 2014 leaks, especially considering that the center of the Spider-Man franchise as a whole has since been absolutely revitalized. Shortly after the leak, Sony and Marvel agreed to an unprecedented deal that has brought Tom Holland's Peter Parker into the MCU: Sony makes the Spider-Man films in the shared universe, while Marvel can use Spidey in teamups. Sony is still able to produce films centered around secondary Spider-Man characters alongside this, but they aren't able to tie them into the Spider-Man films themselves. That reshapes their Spider-villains cinematic universe quite dramatically, with Venom serving as its launchpad.

For all that's the case, though, so many of Sony's ideas seem to be rooted in discussions back in 2014. The emails showed a lot of discussion about a female Spider-Man character, for example; that was presumably Silk, a hero created by Dan Slott back in 2014 and whose film is now known to be in the early stages of preproduction. Juan Capdet's email references both a Kraven and a Black Cat film; while he was pitching for a universe that included Spider-Man, it's interesting to note that both movies are in the works. Other spinoffs have featured characters tied to the Maximum Carnage event, suggesting Sony may well be building up to the crossover movie Capdet suggested (possibly with post-credits scenes).

The only real difference is that Sinister Six has been dropped. Curiously enough, though, not all Sony figures appear to have been convinced that film was a sensible one to go for anyway; in one email Pascal hints at being unsure whether or not it would work. It's possible this idea will be used in the MCU.

Venom Was Always Going to be PG-13

"Kids love Venom," Avi Arad recently explained to Vulture. "It's something about it that attracts the anti-hero sensibility." It was exactly the same point Arad had been expressing privately for years, the point he was making when he noted Venom's prominence in the Toys 'R' Us circular back in 2014. Given that's the case, it's no surprise Arad has now revealed he never believed an R-rating was really an option for Venom. "There's no reason to put in violence," he explained. "To define what Venom is as violence. He's not... Today, in CGI and stuff, we can make Venom bite your head. But we don't have to show the head going side to side like, 'that actually tastes good.' It's irrelevant. What's relevant is that you finally understood, is that a bad guy?"

That doesn't mean the film will be your typical Marvel fare, though. Even back in 2014, emails suggest Sony was toying with a hard PG-13, one that pushed the boundaries of the superhero franchise a little bit further. That does indeed seem to be the approach the studio is ultimately taking with Venom, with Ruben Fleischer pointing to The Dark Knight as an example of how far you can go. "They put a pen through a guy's forehead," he pointed out, "So I figure if you can do that in a PG-13 movie you can bite some heads off."

There is some evidence that Sony considered filming R-rated cuts of some of their films. Certainly, that was part of Juan Capdet's pitch for Maximum Carnage; he suggested it could be "hard PG-13 with the possibility of an unrated bloodier version for home entertainment." While Sony has teased that kind of idea in public, they don't appear to have taken it too seriously, instead using it to toy with viewers.

Venom's Story Has Changed - But Still Has Similarities

As we've noted, Sony originally considered using the Ultimate Comics origin of Venom, where the symbiote was a genetically engineered creature. But even that origin story is tied strongly to Spider-Man. With the studio unable to integrate the wall-crawler into the narrative, they've been forced to take a different approach. They've heavily adapted ideas from the Venom: Lethal Protector and Planet of the Symbiotes plots, telling a tale where an alien spaceship containing symbiotes comes crashing to Earth. The labs have remained part of the plot, although they've been tied to the sinister Life Foundation rather than to Oscorp.

There are only a sparse few emails discussing the potential plot and secondary characters of Venom; the project was in the early stages back in 2014, and no details had really been set in stone. What is interesting, though, is that Pascal dropped in a reference to Eddie Brock's ex-wife, Ann Weying. She'll be an important secondary character in the Venom film, played by Michelle Williams. Pascal's brief email notes that Weying became a symbiote herself, She-Venom, so it's possible that could fit into Sony's future plans for the love of Eddie's life.

While many view the Amazing Spider-Man attempt at Venom as being replaced by the new movie, it's really just an evolution. Indeed, nowhere is this more obvious than in the release date: the original proposition for Venom eyed a 2017 release date, eventually pushed back to early 2018. In reality, Sony was just a few months out.