Just as you thought Venom news couldn’t get any bigger with Eddie Brock’s return in Venom #150, Sony served up some piping hot news for everyone’s favorite symbiote. Sony announced, seemingly out of nowhere, news that its Venom-centric film, aptly titled Venom, will be released October 5^th, 2018. Details are scant, and while the film has no director attached (early reports that Alex Kurtzman was attached have been denied by Sony), there is a script penned by Scott Rosenberg (Con Air) and Jeff Pinker (Amazing Spider-Man 2).

No word that Venom will tie into the MCU like Spider-Man: Homecoming, but the lack of word from Marvel about the release makes it seem that this will be a Venom film that does not tie into the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, there are some fan theories that link the soon-to-be-released Sony film Life to the symbiote mythos, suggesting that it is possible (in a very far-fetched way) that the film will serve as a prequel to Venom.

Life, going by its trailer, could be described as The Thing (1982) in space. The trailer for Life gives us a few glimpses of a black alien black goo taking over a host, the survivors combating it with fire, and a shocking amount of jump cuts, even for a trailer. Someone even noticed that a crowd reaction shot from Spider-Man 3 was reused for the trailer, further cementing the theory for some. Whether or not the Spider-Man 3 footage was supposed to be the most gentle of clues or another instance of cutting corners with the budget is yours to decide.