Sony Places Dates on Two Untitled Marvel Movies

Venom Sony
Sony Pictures have officially scheduled two untitled Marvel movies for 2020. One of these is guaranteed to be the forthcoming adaptation of Morbius the Living Vampire (starring Jared Leto), while the other is likely to be the sequel to Venom (starring Tom Hardy).

 

Variety scooper Justin Kroll has just revealed that there are now two Marvel movies that have been added to the company’s filming schedule, one for July 10, 2020, and the other for October 2 of that year. While these movies aren’t officially titled, Sony’s existing schedule for Sony-Marvel movies has the Morbius movie as being the next production, and Venom outdoing financial expectations should mean that a sequel should also be out two years from now.

 

 

While conventional wisdom would suggest that Venom, a massive hit in October and likely a movie whose sequel would do well during the Summer season, would be scheduled for the July date, and Morbius would be better-suited for the October season given its horror premise, the latter is set to release first. Leto recently teased that filming will start fairly soon, or at least that he’ll need to test for make-up:

 

 

Meanwhile, Venom 2 does not yet have a writer or a director, and there is no confirmation that Tom Hardy will return just yet. If a sequel were already in development, then Morbius would come out later, but right now Sony is going to take a relative risk before continuing with a franchise that’s already proven that it produces results.

 

Other fans may be wondering where this leaves the standalone Spider-Man movies going forward. As I’ve laid out before, the franchise should be relatively unaffected by Venom being a big hit. Sony are more likely to try and find a way to ride the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s coattails with their spin-offs than they would try to make Spider-Man an IP without connections to the greater Marvel Universe again. Remember, the deal happened because they wanted to correct the image of the Spider-Man franchise, which was giving them diminishing returns until Homecoming gave the brand a huge shot in the arm.

 

Fans worried about Marvel keeping quiet about their future plans for Spider-Man past next year need to keep in mind that they’re not talking about their release plans past their third 2019 movie, Spider-Man: Far From Home (which was announced by Sony, not them). Word is that they’ll lay out their plans for the post-Avengers: Annihilation MCU at the next San Diego Comic Con, which will happen after Far From Home‘s release, and that event is likely going to be the best place possible to announce a third Spider-Man movie and a renewal of the deal that they already have in place. Between Venom and the MCU’s Spider-Man, Sony could potentially have two franchises that produce billion-dollar sequels. Why mess with success?