'Venom' May Feature An Appearance By Tom Holland As Spider-Man [Updated]

UPDATE: The source for this rumor has clarified what he meant by this news, but it doesn't make it any less perplexing. Get the full update at the end of the story.

Fans couldn't have been more pleased when Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios announced they would join forces to bring Spider-Man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sony's ownership of the Spider-Man rights kept the hero from meeting the Avengers for years, but an agreement to share the rights in order to benefit both Sony and Marvel brought the wallcrawler home to kick off his own new franchise and be a key part in the future of the MCU. But what about the rest of the Spider-Man universe?

Though Sony is sharing Spider-Man with Marvel Studios, it doesn't appear that they're sharing any other characters from Spidey's big gallery of supporting characters. The studio is shooting their own Venom movie right now (not to mention developing spin-offs like Silver and Black and Morbius the Living Vampire), and while we've heard that these movies are meant to be separate from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and won't involve Tom Holland as Spider-Man, a new source says otherwise.

Jon Schnepp, the director of the documentary The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened?, recently appeared on Collider's Movie Talk, and he's claiming we'll see Tom Holland's Spider-Man appearing in Venom. Schnepp said:

"Spider-Man is going to be in Venom. For the last couple of months, we've been hearing how Sony is keeping it all separated, and Spider-Man is in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but every other character that's in the Spider-Man universe is separate. All I'm saying is that Spider-Man—and I'm talking about Tom Holland's Spider-Man—is going to be in Venom."

Schnepp sounds pretty confident about this, and he does have sources in Hollywood that might have information like this. Plus, this would be the kind of surprise that Kevin Feige, Amy Pascal and Tom Holland would conceivably lie about in order to keep the surprise under wraps until it debuted. But when you think about it, bringing Tom Holland's Spider-Man into the mix for this Venom spin-off would likely create more confusion than excitement, especially for general audience members.

If the Spider-Man played by Tom Holland appears in Venom, then that means Venom (as played by Tom Hardy) and any other characters from the movie would suddenly exist in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That seems like an unlikely prospect when you consider the fact that Marvel Studios isn't involved in the production of Venom at all and doesn't have any say in developing characters that would exist in their universe.

There's always a chance that Venom exists in an alternate comic book universe where Tom Holland is still Spider-Man, but a version of Spidey that hasn't met Tony Stark or the Avengers. However, that would be supremely confusing for general audiences who don't pay as close attention to these details as obsessive cinephiles and comic book fans do. Plus, I can't imagine Marvel Studios (or more importantly, Disney) wanting their Spider-Man appearing in an R-rated Venom movie.

The best solution would be to have an alternate version of Spider-Man, like a live-action version of Miles Morales or something like that, appear in Venom. Or if Sony really wants to start creating their own unique Spider-Man universe, they could bring Spider-Gwen into the equation.

For now, we'll take this rumor with a grain of salt, and we'll be very interested to see if any version of Spider-Man pops up in Venom when it hits theaters on October 5, 2018.

UPDATE: Jon Schnepp has since clarified to Collider Heroes that "Tom Holland was on set filming scenes on Venom for at least two days as Peter Parker. Okay, so I'm not saying Spider-Man is in the film. When I say Tom Holland's Spider-Man is in the film, I'm saying Peter Parker is in the film."

That still creates the exact same problems that we stated above, and we still can't imagine Disney letting this happen. Again, take this all with a grain of salt and we'll see what happens.