What Could Have Been / Sony's Spider-Man Universe

In General

• This film universe will incorporate spin-off projects that were meant to expand The Amazing Spider-Man Series. The latter became a Stillborn Franchise, and some of those projects are likely to live on in Sony's new verse.
• Silver and Black, a crossover film pairing Silver Sable up with Black Cat, was in development. However it has been redeveloped into a tv series, though prior to that it was considered making two separate solo films for the characters.
• After the Sony/Disney breakout in August 2019, Tom Holland stated he would continue playing Spider-Man for Sony, with Sony confirming they would make a third and even fourth installment without the involvement of Marvel Studios. However, Sony and Disney agreed upon a new deal on September 2019, allowing Spidey to appear in two more MCU movies after Spider-Man: Far From Home — one being No Way Home, and the other being another appearance in an ensemble MCU movie. This deal was later expanded into at least another trilogy of solo Spider-Man films most likely with additional appearances in the Disney-produced MCU films as well, with all 3 companies involved also having a hand in the SSU movies and the possibility of more crossover events between the two.

Released Movies

Venom

• Matt Smith, Pedro Pascal and Matthias Schoenaerts were considered for the role of Carlton Drake before Riz Ahmed was cast. Smith and Pascal would eventually go on to portray Milo and Reed Richards in Morbius and The Fantastic Four respectively.
• Adi Shankar, Adam Wingard, Rawson Marshall Thurber and David F. Sandberg were considered to direct the movie before Ruben Fleischer was hired. Shankar previously produced Truth in Journalism which features Ryan Kwanten as Eddie Brock.
• Lashana Lynch auditioned for an unspecified role in the movie. Lynch would later go on to portray Maria Rambeau in Captain Marvel.
• In 1997, New Line Cinema hired David S. Goyer to write a script for an R-rated Venom movie that partially adapted Maximum Carnage with Dolph Lundgren in mind for the titular role. The film also contained nods to the various Venom comics and novels of the 1990s:
  • Like the 2018 Venom movie, there was no connection to Spider-Man whatsoever, and it also takes numerous liberties with the source material.
  • Eddy Brock lived at St. Estus' orphanage as a child, and was taken hostage by Cletus Kasady when the latter burned the orphanage down. Years later, Eddy became a respected journalist, while Cletus became a notorious serial killer with a cult following and a fixation on Eddy.
  • Eddy went undercover to help the police lure Cletus into a trap, with Cletus being sentenced to a televised public execution.
  • Dr. Rachel Kafka – Cletus’ psychiatrist – combines aspects of Anne Weying, being Eddy’s love-interest and even becoming She-Venom late into the movie.
  • The Venom symbiote – bonded to an alien spider – escapes a horde of "Blood Hunter" symbiotes by jumping into a stasis pod, which crash-lands on Earth and crushes a mugger in the process of robbing Eddy. The symbiote leaves the dead alien spider and bonds to Eddy, turning him into a semi-amorphous monster with the ability to sprout giant spider-legs from the emblems on his chest and back.
  • As Venom, Eddy beats up some of Cletus’ followers, but has a symbiote-induced premonition of Cletus bonding to a Blood Hunter symbiote and going on a rampage, and sets out to stop Cletus’ execution.
  • One of the Blood Hunter symbiotes follows the Venom symbiote to Earth and bonds to Cletus just as he’s about to be executed. Cletus escapes and fights with Venom, proving even more powerful than him.
  • The Vault – a black ops government organization that seeks to capture and weaponize the symbiotes, having captured a few Blood Hunters in the past – recruits Dr. Kafka and manipulates her into helping them capture Eddy and separate him from the Venom symbiote.
  • Upon realizing she was tricked, Dr. Kafka is imprisoned, but the Venom symbiote escapes and bonds to her, turning her into She-Venom until she returns the symbiote to Eddy with a kiss.
  • Cletus – now going by Carnage – hunts down the people involved in his arrest and kills them, then sends his followers on a city-wide rampage.
  • As the Blood Hunter symbiote consumes him from the inside-out, Cletus returns to the ruins of St. Estus’ for a final confrontation with Eddy. Eddy and Dr. Kafka inject Cletus with Vitamin-C to incapacitate him, but the Blood Hunter symbiote abandons Cletus’ body in preparation to reproduce. Eddie separates from the Venom symbiote and sends it to fight the Blood Hunter, then seemingly immolates them both.
  • In the film’s finale, Eddy and Dr. Kafka remain a couple, and it’s revealed the Venom symbiote is still alive and bonded to Eddy.
• In 2013, a Venom film was also considered as one of the planned spin-offs of The Amazing Spider-Man Series along with a planned Sinister Six movie (which would also have potentially included Venom as a member of the titular team), with Alex Kurtzman as the director. This is seemingly why the Venom symbiote could be seen as part of the Oscorp Special Projects lab in the trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, indicating it was meant to be introduced there before being cut for unknown reasons. The leaked e-mails from the 2014 Sony hack also revealed that, among the wealth of planned installments for The Amazing Spider-Man Series, a few of them would have focused on Venom, one of them even being an Agent Venom film. Finn Wittrock and Alan Tudyk were the frontrunners to play Eddie Brock and Cletus Kasady respectively, while Chris Zylka all but jumped to come back as Flash Thompson.
• The film was originally planned to begin with the Life Foundation shuttle coming across the symbiote-infested comet and harvesting four of them, but this scene was cut and the film instead opens with the shuttle on its way back to Earth after collecting the samples.
• "The Third Floor” — one of the companies that worked on the Venom movie's CGI — released concept art showing that Carnage was originally going to be the film's antagonist rather than Riot.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage

• Travis Knight, Rupert Wyatt and Rupert Sanders were in the running to direct the film before Andy Serkis was hired.
• Ruben Fleischer intended to return for this film, but the studio opted to replace him due to wanting to make the sequel while Fleischer was still working on Zombieland: Double Tap. Fleischer expressed his approval with Serkis' hiring, having grown disillusioned with making a follow-up after the harsh critical reception the first film experienced.
• The inclusion of Tom Holland as Spider-Man went through multiple iterations. While the character ultimately makes a cameo appearance in the film's mid-credits sequence, at one point he was planned to have some kind of actual presence earlier in the film's story.
• According to this, the film almost had a different subtitle; "Love Will Tear Us Apart", as a reference to the Joy Division song of the same name. A cover version of the song does play at the end of the film, though.
• A mostly-finished deleated scene has the Carnage symbiote outline a plan to slaughter all of humanity and replace them with symbiote-human hybrids sired by Cletus and Frances, with itself being worshipped as a god. Even Cletus expresses reluctance to go along with this, Carnage sneering that he's small-minded for focusing on revenge on Eddie.
• Concept arts for Carnage reveals that he was originally intented to have a design more akin to his comic book counterpart featuring black teeth, no tongue and black veins around his body.
• Concept art shows the the prison break scene was originally much gorier and lacked the Carnage Tornado, instead showing Carnage brutally slaughtering the guards and inmates alike.
• Concept art of the church fight scene shows Carnage was originally going to crucify Venom while taking on a pope-like appearance, and transform into a symbiote-dragon.
• Woody Harrelson was initially hesitant to voice Carnage himself, as he felt nervous about how he he would be perceived by fans and critics. He even suggested that Andy Serkis voice him instead, but the latter insisted that he should be the one to voice Carnage, which Harrelson eventually came to enjoy.

Morbius

• Antoine Fuqua and F. Gary Gray were approached to direct the movie before Daniel Espinosa was hired. When asked why he turned down the offer, Fuqua responded with this.
  Fuqua: As a kid, I grew up with comic books. They talked to me about Black Panther years ago, way back in the day. There's some reason they came up and they talked to me about at Sony about Morbius. I don't know, I have a thirteen-year-old son, so I'm watching more of that again and it's exciting to do that. I'd love to create a new one, but something that's closer to what I get excited about.
• Matt Smith was originally announced to be playing Loxias Crown/Hunger before his role was altered to be an original character based on Hunger. However, cast interviews in the special features of the film still identify Smith as playing Crown, which confirms that the name change happened pretty late in the film.

Madame Web

• Charlize Theron and Amy Adams were considered for the part of Madame Web before Dakota Johnson was cast. Theron previously portrayed Clea in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
• According to Dakota Johnson, the original script that she signed on for was thrown out and changed.
• According to some reports, the original plot of the film was "darker" and more Terminator-like, with the villain Ezekiel Sims traveling back in time to kill Peter Parker before he was born, making Madame Web and a group of heroines They would have to protect Mary Parker to prevent this.
• Apparently, Sony originally planned for this film to be a prequel to Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man, but they eventually changed their mind and later said it would be a prequel to Tom Holland's Spider-Man.
• At least one concept art contains Tom Holland's adult Spider-Man fighting the villain Ezekiel Sims, so it is possible that an appearance by Holland was planned that was later discarded.
• According to the film's director, she originally considered some ideas for a post-credits scene for the film, which ended up being cut because she didn't feel it fit with the way the film ends.

Upcoming Movies

Kraven the Hunter

• Brad Pitt, Keanu Reeves, John David Washington and Adam Driver were initially offered the role of Kraven the Hunter before the casting of Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Pitt previously portrayed the Vanisher in Deadpool 2.
• Jodie Turner-Smith had discussions for the part of Calypso before Ariana DeBose was cast.
• Kodi Smit-McPhee was approached for the role of Dmitri Smerdyakov before the casting of Fred Hechinger, but turned down the offer due to prior scheduling commitments. Smit-McPhee previously played Kurt Wagner in X-Men: Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix.

• There have been several previous attempts to adapt Kraven in films:
  • Sam Raimi had considered using Kraven in his Spider-Man 4 before the film was cancelled due to the mixed performance of Spider-Man 3 in favor of rebooting the franchise with The Amazing Spider-Man.
  • His spear appears in the end credits of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, with the intention being that he would appear in the planned third film and The Sinister Six.
  • Prior to this film's development, Ryan Coogler wanted to incorporate Kraven into the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Black Panther before being made aware that Sony owned the rights.
  • Jon Watts planned to use Kraven as a backup villain for Spider-Man: No Way Home if the multiversal angle had turned out to be unfeasible. However Kraven still technically appears in the film as a CGI silhouette in a multiverse portal, though whether that Kraven is meant to be this one or not is still unknown.

Venom: The Last Dance

• Owen Wilson was approached for an unspecified role before Chiwetel Ejiofor was cast.

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