‘Venom’ Director Ruben Fleischer Says Sequel Will Lead to Spider-Man Confrontation

World’s will collide.

Venom director Ruben Fleischer has said that the franchise is leading up to a confrontation with Spider-Man.

Tom Hardy made his debut as Marvel’s iconic antihero in Sony’s first Venom film, which earned $856 million at the box office, leading to a sequel being given the greenlight. However, while he directed the first film, Fleischer won’t be helming the sequel, as it was confirmed in August that actor-turned-director Andy Serkis will take over for Venom 2.

To confirm and celebrate his hiring, Serkis posted the cover of Venom Lethal Protector #6 which features both Venom and Spider-Man on the cover, and the tagline “It’s not their final battle but it just might be their greatest.”

View this post on Instagram

It’s actually happening. I can feel it, the Symbiote has found a host in me, and I’m ready for the ride…Can’t wait! Are you ready @tomhardy ? #venom #venom2 #marvel

A post shared by Andy Serkis (@andyserkis) on Aug 5, 2019 at 2:22pm PDT

This was the first indication that Spider-Man could appear, but when speaking to Fandom recently, Fleischer teased that the sequel could indeed be leading up to a team-up.

“That’s where it’s all going to lead,” he said, “And that’s the exciting thing, because we changed the origin of Venom…in the comics, he evolved from Spider-Man but because of the Marvel-Sony thing we weren’t able to do that. And so the thing I think it’s building towards, and will be exciting to see, is when they actually do confront each other.”

It’s unclear as to whether this is to happen in Venom 2 or a subsequent film in the franchise, however is was revealed recently that Spider-Man will feature in one more MCU film aside from his third solo outing, so it could be possible.

This move would definitely make sense, as the Spider-Man universe has been busy expanding without the main man, with Venom and the upcoming Morbius film starring Jared Leto – so perhaps this is the time to bring the two universes together and give the studio more options of where to take Tom Holland’s hero next.

With the recent reveal of Shriek being added to Venom 2, it could be that the long-term plan is to go down the path of Maximum Carnage, which sees Morbius form an uneasy alliance with Spider-Man and Venom in order to take down Carnage. This may be what the Venom sequel will be setting up for the larger Sony Spider-universe.

Venom 2 is currently set for release on October 2^nd, 2020.