For years now there have been rumblings about Spider-Man’s greatest villain getting his own spinoff movie and launching his own franchise. In recent months we’ve been hearing more and more evidence that this would eventually happen and Friday in an early morning announcement, Sony has officially unveiled a Venom spinoff movie that will be a part of the studio’s efforts to expand it’s Spider-Man universe.

The Hollywood Reporter first reported the epic deal which includes Sony bringing in a “brain trust” to guide the Spider-Man franchise in a way that Marvel is guiding it’s franchises and Disney is planning guiding it’s Star Wars franchise. To compete with The Avengers and Warner Bros superhero ensemble film their building, Sony has hired it’s own supergroup of screenwriters that include Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Jeff Pinkner, Ed Solomon and Drew Goddard.

Per THR:

Kurtzman, Orci and Solomon will write Venom, centered on the black costumed villain that already made his big screen debut in the third Spider-Man movie of the Sam Raimi trillogy, that Kurtzman will direct. Goddard, meanwhile, will write, with an eye to direct, The Sinister Six, which will focus on Spider-Man’s villains.

This is a landmark announcement by Sony as it instantly makes their Spider-Man franchise one of the top movie franchises to watch moving forward. The business of comic book movies is all about growth of a universe and it’s clear that the folks at Sony are growing their Spider-Man universe.

We’ll know more about this as the films are worked on but it’s looking like the Venom movie will have a release date of 2018 and the Sinister Six movie could come before then.