There's been a lot of speculation about who the Venom movie villain(s) will be, but star Tom Hardy may have just dumped a whole can of fuel on that fire, with a recent social media image that he posted - and then promptly took down:

The image of Hardy as Venom is framed by Venom's nemesis, Carnage, who has been rumored to be the antagonist of this Venom movie for some time. Last we heard, Rogue One actor Riz Ahmed was rumored to be in talks for the Carnage role, but there have been no hard confirmation or denial of that, since the rumor began. More recently, the official first-look photo of Hardy as Eddie Brock was released, and an Easter egg within that photo points to Venom's other symbiote offspring (five soldiers of the evil "Life Foundation" bonded to symbiote suits) definitely being in the film. If that's the storyline, then having Carnage be one of those offspring makes sense.

The question here is: why did Tom Hardy ultimately pull that image off of his Instagram? Was it because the studio PR people raised a red flag about him potentially revealing a big villain secret? Or was just that they didn't want the headache of fans reading too much into the image, when Carnage isn't actually featured in the movie?

We should know soon enough, as Venom begins to release its first trailer and images. The film hits theaters on October 5, 2018.