Unless there’s a surprise cameo, we won’t be seeing Peter Parker or Spider-Man in Sony Pictures’ Venom, opening in theaters next Thursday night. While Eddie Brock (being played by Tom Hardy) and the symbiote became one in “The Amazing Spider-Man” comics, director Ruben Fleischer‘s adaptation offers a new rebirth that begins a different kind of dark universe for the antihero. Fleischer explains the decision to Latino Review:

“I felt like this movie is Venom’s movie and I didn’t want to distract from that. There is more than enough to explore with Eddie Brock and Venom in this film that we felt very satisfied with the story that we were telling.”

This is not to say that Spider-Man won’t eventually swing into the franchise for a one-on-one battle with his greatest foe. Fleischer is extremely candid about his hopes for future films, which could also include various other antiheroes such as Morbius (to be played by Jared Leto).

“The obvious thing that we are all excited to do is have Venom face off against Spider-Man at some point.

“So that was something…we knew we couldn’t use Spider-Man in this movie or didn’t want to use him in this movie. But we were all really excited about the potential for Spider-Man and Venom at some point in the future meeting up. Without spoiling anything, there are other adversaries from the world of Venom that we’re excited to meet up with in the future.”

Outside of Morbius, Sony plans franchises around the character Silk, Jackpot, and Nightwatch. Obviously, Carnage is expected to be the big bad if a Venom sequel were to happen.