Fans rejoiced earlier this year when Sony finally let its prized possession, Spider-Man, join the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The move, however, wasn’t without its casualties. Among them, Drew Goddard’s Sinister Six, a massive super-villain film fans had been anticipating for years.

Well it turns out maybe that movie isn’t as dead as we all assumed. In fact, if the powers that be at Marvel and Sony want, it could still become part of the plan, instead of collateral damage. We talked to Goddard, who wrote the upcoming film version of The Martian, and he filled us in a bit about his Sinister Six film. The Cabin in the Woods director revealed to io9 that he wrote Sinister Six with a very specific vision—one that could easily fit into the future of the Web-slinger.

“My vision of that movie was a summer annual,” Goddard told io9. “So you didn’t have to worry about continuity. It was just, ‘We take Peter, put him on an adventure, we put him back in his life.’ I intentionally wanted a movie that didn’t have to worry about mythology and continuity. It was important to me to make a movie that could stand on its own. So the good news is, you know, [laughs], it slots in very well to any plan anybody ever wants. We just need to let a couple years go by, I think.”

That’s exciting—especially since we know Marvel both loves Goddard (he’s worked on both seasons of Netflix’s Daredevil) and has big plans for Spider-Man (a new series of films starts in 2017.) Maybe Goddard’s film becomes a future Sony/Marvel crossover.

Plus, despite lots of his hard work getting pushed aside by the new Spider-Man plan, Goddard is totally on board with what’s about to happen.

“The tricky part about all this is I love this plan,” he said. “I love that you get to see Spider-Man in Marvel movies. I think that’s a great thing. I’m on board with that decision because as a fan that’s what I want. So who knows what the future holds? This is Hollywood, man, you’ve gotta play the long game.”

But isn’t The Sinister Six about those specific villains, more than Spider-Man? Not really, teased Goddard.

“It was a Spider-Man movie,” Goddard said. “It was the giant, epic Spider-Man movie of my dreams.”

We’ll have more about Goddard’s next film, The Martian, leading up to the October 2 release.

Now that Sony has set Spider-Man on its rebooted path, the studio is setting its sights on other Spider-Man franchises. Case in point: Venom.

Sony has tapped Dante Harper to pen a script for Venom, something that is being envisioned as a franchise apart from and unrelated to the upcoming Spider-Man movie in the works with actor Tom Holland.

Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach, stewards of the Spider-Man properties, are producing and overseeing the project.

Venom is one of Marvel’s top villains and a Spider-Man fixture since he was introduced in 1988, created by writer David Michelinie and artists Todd McFarlane and Mike Zeck. The character is an alien symbiote that need a human host to survive. In return, the alien empowers its victim with incredible powers.

For the longest time, Venom was a villain but then morphed into an anti-hero and even (almost) good guy. In his current incarnation, Venom is paired with Flash Thompson, a Peter Parker bully-turned-close friend and now a government agent.

It is unclear which Venom incarnation is being used for the new project.

The character made its screen appearance in Spider-Man 3 and was played by Topher Grace. A spin-off has been in development in several incarnations, with Gary Ross and Josh Trank among the director coming and going, and writers such as Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese (Deadpool) and Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci penning versions.

This Venom is meant to not only stand on its own but to also launch its own franchise.

Palak Patel and Eric Fineman are overseeing Venom for Sony’s Columbia label.

Harper is an up-and-coming scribe who did rewrite work on Edge of Tomorrow, the time travel sci-fi movie that starred Tom Cruise. He also co-wrote Sleepless Night, the crime thriller that stars Jamie Foxx and Dermot Mulroney.

He is repped by CAA, Management 360, and Lichter, Grossman.

SPIDER-MAN Spinoff VENOM Finally Has An Official Release Date

Well, this came out of nowhere! Sony Pictures has announced a release date for Venom and it's coming sooner than expected! Will it tie into the MCU? Hit the jump for everything we know so far...

Back when The Amazing Spider-Man Universe was still a thing, Sony Pictures had plans for movies revolving around both Venom and the Sinister Six. Those were shelved as soon as the wall-crawler made the leap to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the studio - Sony, not Marvel Studios - has confirmed today that they will release Venom worldwide on October 5th, 2018.

Does that sound familiar? Well, it should, because it's the date which was vacated by Aquaman just a couple of hours ago! There's currently no word on who will direct or how this will tie into the MCU (it probably won't, unfortunately), but it wouldn't be remotely surprising for Sony to head down the R-Rated route following the success of both Deadpool and Logan.

It's also worth noting that Venom will be released following the events of Avengers: Infinity War, and with so much speculation revolving around the possible introduction of the alien costume in that, things could head in a very interesting direction here! What do you guys think? As always, be sure to let us know your thoughts and theories in the comments section down below.

UPDATE: Well, here's a potentially concerning bit of information, but one which was to be expected...

Alex Kurtzman, writer of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 and director of THE MUMMY reboot will be at the helm of Sony's VENOM.

— Exhibitor Relations (@ERCboxoffice) March 16, 2017

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