While Venom's story hinges around one symbiote in particular (you know, the title character who bonds with Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock), it's no secret that the new Sony film will feature several of the mysterious aliens that have come to Earth.

When IGN visited the set of Venom earlier this year, the production team behind the movie explained why and how the symbiotes ended up on Earth to begin with."We see, at the beginning of the film, the moment when the symbiotes are collected up by a Life Foundation space probe, which finds them on a comet drifting through space, approaching Earth. And the space probe is out there looking for signs of life, and they can’t believe their luck. Tthere’s life signals everywhere, all across this asteroid," explained VFX supervisor Paul Franklin.

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"The symbiotes seem to actively want to be collected. Because it’s all part of their plan to come to Earth. They’re looking for planets where they can find hosts to inhabit," added Franklin. "They’ve never really found a place where they can exist in harmony with the life forms of whatever planet they find themselves on."That's where the Life Foundation comes into play. Run by Riz Ahmed's Carlton Crake, a billionaire inventor, the Life Foundation's core mission is to answer what the future of humanity looks like."The fun thing about the Life Foundation is that it’s a cover. Character-wise, it’s a cover. The company itself is supposed to be this beautiful, perfect scientific endeavor for all mankind, while actually, it’s just the dark cover-up for doing scientific experiments that are going a bit too far, and using people for things that are non-ethical. And besides that, being treasonous, teaming up with aliens to take over Earth. So, that’s not really healthy," said production designer Oliver Scholl.We see in the trailers that the Life Foundation is experimenting on the symbiotes and bonding them to humans. Then, of course, there's Eddie Brock, who somehow bonds with one of the symbiotes outside of Carlton Drake's purview. Through these experiments, the symbiote known as Venom finds something unexpected."We see several different symbiotes. We’ve got different colored symbiotes. We understand that Venom isn’t just a one-off organism," said Franklin. "This is a completely new thing for the symbiotes. The Venom symbiote finds Eddie Brock, finds he can live in equilibrium with him. That there’s a balance that can be found there."For more on Venom, find out what the film's rating and runtime will be , plus why we think it will perform strongly at the box office . And be sure to tune into IGN tomorrow at 8 a.m. PT for more exclusive Venom set visit coverage!

Terri Schwartz is Editorial Manager of Entertainment at IGN. Talk to her on Twitter at @Terri_Schwartz