“EDDIEEEEEEEE, ARE YOU READY TO MAKE ANOTHER SEQUEL?”

Ready or not, here comes Venom with another movie, his third to date. The first two films in the franchise, starring Tom Hardy as an investigative reporter turned host to a strange but heroic alien symbiote, have grossed $1.36 billion worldwide. That’s despite the fact that Spider-Man, the character whose exploits inspired Venom in the first place in Marvel Comics, has basically never appeared in any of the movies.

That sort of financial success always inspires more sequels, and now Deadline reports that Sony is readying Venom 3 for production. While Venom was directed by Ruben Fleischer, and Venom: Let There Be Carnage was directed by Andy Serkisthis third film is going to be helmed by Kelly Marcel, who was a writer and a producer on both of the previous entries.

More, via Deadline:

Plot details are unknown other then Hardy returning as the lethal protector Venom following the first two films grossing a combined $1.36 billion worldwide at the box-office. It is also unknown who will be joining Hardy from previous films or if any characters from the Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters will be joining the film.

The Venom movies are supposedly set in the “Sony Spider-Man Universe,” which is its own separate continuity from the Marvel Cinematic Universe — although recent Marvel films have at least allowed for characters to cross over from the MCU to the SSU and vice versa. Despite its name, we have never seen the Spider-Man of the Sony Spider-Man Universe; Tom Holland’s version of the character is technically part of the MCU, and he only appeared in Venom: Let There Be Carnage in a post-credits scene where Venom jumped to the MCU and saw him on a television screen.

Some fans have speculated that Venom or the SSU in general could be a venue to continue the adventures of Andrew Garfield’s version of Spider-Man, who originally appeared in the Amazing Spider-Man movies, and then returned in last year’s Spider-Man: No Way Home. So far, though, no official announcement of any new Spider-Man project featuring Garfield has been made.

Either way, Deadline’s report also describes Venom 3 as the “final” Venom movie, with “Hardy and Marcel ... on the same page when it comes to shaping Venom’s story and that heading into the final chapter.” If so, we are now preparing to shed several symbiotic tears over the loss of this great, weird character.

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