Sony's Venom Movie May Cross Over With 'The Amazing Spider-Man'

If Sony's creative minds have their way, Marvel's build to "The Avengers" may become the template for the evolution of their "Spider-Man" franchise.

Both IGN and Hollywood.com report that executives have begun picturing a planned Venom movie that coincides with the universe July's "The Amazing Spider-Man" starring James Garfield and Emma Stone re-invents. From the sounds of it, that could mean a new ocean of possibilities paralleling the way Marvel Studios established the setting and stakes of "The Avengers" with the likes of what's known as "Phase One": the shared universe of both "Iron Man" movies, (to a much lesser extent) "The Incredible Hulk," "Thor" and "Captain America: The First Avenger."

So far, the possible associations remain vague.

"Look for the worlds [of 'The Amazing Spider-Man' and 'Venom'] to make sense with one another," said producer Matt Tolmach. "Hopefully, all these worlds will live together in peace someday."

Co-producer Avi Arad explains that Venom will be an "Eddie Brock story" that will closely follow the arc of the comics. It stands to reason that it would follow the continuity that Brock will be the story-fabricating reporter that's found out and disgraced by Spider-Man, only to come into contact with the Symbiote that takes over him and transforms him into the force of nature with powers similar to Spider-Man's named Venom.

Over the course of the Spider-Man canon, the Symbiote has had no less than a half-dozen hosts.

"All these tidbits about webs, artificial webs, is a huge industry now," Arad said. "Spiderwebs have unique qualities that will be huge for communications, fibers, and so forth. So we have taken the approach that we want to make the huge amazing movie about Eddie."

A word of advice, Sony: don't green-light anything until "The Amazing Spider-Man" has hit theaters. The last time Venom was featured in a big-screen Spider-Man turn, to call it disastrous would be generous. Topher Grace portrayed Brock in "Spider-Man 3" and made it abundantly apparent that Sam Raimi and Co. had completely cast aside the original element that prior to coming into contact with the Symbiote, Brock had trained himself to a physical peak. Consider also that Venom didn't even show up until the movie's last 20 minutes after a film-long build-up.

Add to that the fact that for all the technology that can make Katy Perry sound like something other than a dying animal, nobody could be bothered to engineer Grace's face into something more...menacing. Seriously, people expected Red Forman to pop out from around the corner and just call Venom a dumbass at any moment.

First things come first, guys. Show you can get Spider-Man right. Then take careful note of both every reason Venom should've worked the first time, and every single thing way Raimi's people screwed the pooch.