Tom Hardy to play Venom, Ruben Fleischer to direct

Sony Pictures has officially signed Tom Hardy (Mad Max: Fury Road, Inception) to star as Eddie Brock in their upcoming Venom movie, with Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland, Gangster Squad) to direct. Hardy previously played the DC Comics supervillain Bane in 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises, and will be seen this summer in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk.

The studio also released a photo of the actor wearing a Venom T-shirt, and mentioned that he is a “huge fan of Venom”:

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

Venom will hail from Sony’s Marvel Universe of characters and will NOT be a spinoff of the current Marvel Cinematic Universe wherein Sony allows Spider-Man to be played by Tom Holland. Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach are producing along with Amy Pascal, with Palak Patel and Eric Fineman overseeing for Columbia Pictures.

Writers Scott Rosenberg (Pain & Gain, Jumanji) & Jeff Pinkner (The Amazing Spider-Man 2) will pen the script for the Venom film, which is set for an October 5, 2018 release date. Production will begin this fall.

First appearing in the comic book series as an alien costume worn by Spider-Man in Marvel‘s “The Amazing Spider-Man” #252 in 1984, it was several years before the creature left Peter Parker and merged with photographer Eddie Brock, forming the antihero known as Venom. Since then, the character has appeared in a variety of different forms and bonded with several different hosts. In the “Ultimate” Marvel Universe, the suit has a more terrestrial origin, created by Parker and Brock’s scientist parents in an attempt to cure cancer. More recently, the Venom symbiote has been moving between hosts, including Mac Gargan (aka The Scorpion) and Peter Parker’s old high school rival, Flash Thompson.

Venom previously appeared on the big screen, played by Topher Grace in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3. Since the release of that film in 2007, rumors have persisted about a solo Venom movie, but various iterations of the project have failed to materialize. Alex Kurtzman was set to direct a spin-off back in 2013, but he is no longer attached to the project.

Tom Holland’s Spidey can next be seen in Spider-Man: Homecoming, in theaters July 7. Sony Pictures Animation, meanwhile, is delivering a non-MCU animated Spider-Man movie on December 14, 2018, just two months after the new Venom movie release date.