Back in 2009 Sony was developing a Venom spin-off following the character’s appearance in Spider-Man 3. Zombieland writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick handed in their draft of the script, and Gary Ross was hired to direct in October 09. However, Sony decided to reboot the Spider-Man franchise with The Amazing Spider-Man, shifting their focus, and Ross moved on to direct The Hunger Games which hits this month.

Now it looks like a Venom solo movie is back on the agenda, and Chronicle director Josh Trank may be in line to direct.

From 24 Frames:

The studio is negotiating with Josh Trank, the hot director of this winter’s found-footage hit “Chronicle,” to take the reins of the Spidey spin-off, said a person familiar with the project who was not authorized to talk about it publicly. Sony was not immediately available for comment.

The film would center on the gooey villain who was a mainstay of the Marvel comics and was a nemesis, incarnated by Topher Grace, in the third “Spider-Man” picture in 2007. (The character attaches himself to a human host and becomes as powerful as the web-slinging superhero.)

Topher Grace, who played the villain in Spider-Man 3, was not being eyed to return in 2009, and Sony is still looking for another actor to take over. Sony is also said to be looking for a new writer to rework the script (or possibly start anew).

Following the success of Chronicle, which has made just over $100m worldwide on a $12m budget, Josh Trank was thought to be in line to direct the Fantastic Four reboot for 20th Century Fox, but it seems Venom will be his next superhero outing.

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Earlier this week we learned that Gary Ross would be re-writing Venom and may end up directing, however Spider-Man director Sam Raimi recently told Splash Page that at the moment Ross is still hard at work on the script for Spider-Man 4. Raimi also said that pre-production is coming together and they hope to start filming next March.

“We’re hoping that it’s the first week in March,” said Raimi.

At the moment, pre-production is in full swing, even as screenwriter Gary Ross (“great director and a very fine writer,” said Raimi) continues to work on the script.

“He’s working on a draft,” he continued. “I just gave him some notes and he’s doing a rewrite right now.”

On other fronts, “Spider-Man 4″ continues to chug along. “The production is starting to come together,” Raimi told us. “I’ve got a production designer who is starting to design the sets and the environments that the picture will take place in. We just brought aboard Scott Stokdyk as one of the two visual effects supervisors, and I worked with him on all three ‘Spider-man’ pictures.”

With Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst set to reprise their roles, Raimi and his team will soon turn their attention to filling out the rest of the cast. “None of the casting has really taken place, but we’re starting to think about that now,” the director said.

I doubt we will know which villain(s) will be involved until the casting gets under-way in a few weeks/month.

Now is a good time to be a Spider-Man fan with both Spider-Man 4 and Venom in the works. I think Raimi knows what mistakes were made last time round so Spider-Man 4 has the potential to be better than Spider-Man 3.

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Venom screenwriter Paul Wernick said just two weeks ago that he and co-writer Rhett Reese had handed in their second draft of the script to Sony, and that Sony would now be “pushing forward in whatever ways they push forward”. Well it seems a fair bit of pushing has been taking place, as according to Variety a director has been hired. He’s called Gary Ross and he’s no strange to the universe, as he is currently re-writing the Spider-Man 4 script.

The relationship between Columbia Pictures and Gary Ross that began with his rewrite on “Spider-Man 4” is taking a “Venom”-ous turn.

I am hearing that the studio is in talks with Ross to helm the Spidey-spinoff “Venom,” and rewrite the script.

Ross will begin writing the script as soon as he completes the “Spider-Man” film.

While Venom showed up in the last Spidey installment, the intention is to start from scratch. Topher Grace played him in the last picture but the role will likely be recast.

Ross’ past directing credits include Pleasantville and Seabiscuit, and while they aren’t big action movies they are good films, so Venom should be in capable hands.

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We recently learned that Spider-Man 4 would start filming in January which will please fans of the web slinger, but what about Venom fans who were short changed in Spider-Man 3? What’s happening with the Venom spin-off that Sony have been developing for nearly two years? Well writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick gave Sci-Fi Wire an update:

Today Wernick confirmed to us that the project is still moving forward and the writing team has turned the script in to the suits at Sony. “We’ve written two drafts of Venom, and the studio has it, and they’re pushing forward in whatever ways they push forward,” Wernick told SCI FI Wire in an exclusive interview.

So when might Venom be going into production? “We’re not sure, [but] we’ve turned in our two drafts,” said Wernick.

One big question has been whether a Venom movie might happen even before Spider-Man 4, but that now appears unlikely. The latest rumors have Spidey 4 shooting in early 2010. When asked about the relationship between the two movies, Wernick was tight-lipped. “We can’t really talk about that, unfortunately,” the writer said before adding, “Basically, the studio and Marvel and the Arads are taking our drafts and going beyond and figuring out what’s the next step.”

We have no idea what the story for Spider-Man 4 involves, but could it set up the Venom spin-off? Will Spider-Man feature in Venom? So many questions we probably won’t get answers to until 2011!

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In April Venom spin-off writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick said that they’ve handed in a draft of the script to Sony and were waiting for feedback, however they couldn’t reveal any details for obvious reasons. Now SHH managed to speak to them again and they did reveal one thing. Stan Lee will be making an appearance in the film.

“Oh, yeah. Stan Lee is in it,” Reese told us. “I feel like that’s the one thing we can say. He does appear in our script, and we’re very specific about where he is and why. May he live forever. Let’s hope he’s in many movies to come.”

Stan Lee has been making cameos in Marvel films ever since the first X-Men movie back in 2000, so we can expect him to keep this tradition up for many years. I imagine he’ll be popping up in Thor, Captain America and The Avengers, even if he wasn’t directly association with the characters during his comic book career.

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Over the past few months we’ve been getting quite a lot of news about Spider-Man 4, including a release date. However something we haven’t heard much about is the Venom spin-off that first had rumblings around a year ago. Well now we have something, as SHH got the chance to talk to Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who Sony have hired to write the script:

“Venom is something that we’re very fired up to be writing,” Reese told us. “We have turned in a draft and are waiting to hear back, so it’s early in the process. But it’s a thrill to be writing ‘Venom’ for obvious reasons.” As far as what Marvel is looking for, Reese did say that they had to follow “certain parameters” or the “47 rules” as Wernick called them.

“Obviously, with a character like Venom there’s a ton of stuff to draw from,” Reese told us. “Then they had specific rules about the villain and the backstory and stuff like that, so there were certain things they wanted us… certain parameters they gave us. But largely we pitched them something and they liked it but they had changes, so we worked on the outline for a long time and then we wrote the script. So with Marvel and Sony and us it’s definitely very, very collaborative.”

They couldn’t talk about whether they were going to ignore everything that happened with the character in Spider-Man 3 or start fresh for reasons mentioned above.

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Back in February there was talk of Sony looking at writers for a possible Venom movie, and now we have news that a draft script has been written by Jacob Estes. However, the studio is considering going in a different direction from Estes’ script and is seeking writers for a new draft.

Venom was played by Topher Grace in Spider-Man 3, however apparently he may be replaced, which would be easy considering Venom is a substance rather than a character.

Sony is still hoping to release Spider-Man 4 in 2011, and Sam Raimi confirmed at Comic Con that he is still waiting to read the script. If we get the fourth Spider-Man movie in 2011 that would be 9 years after we got the first Spider-Man movie back in 2002.

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The same day we got word from screenwriter James Vanderbilt regarding the progress of Spiderman 4, IESB have got word that a Venom stand alone film is moving forward. A number of ‘A-List’ writers have met with the studio, whoever the studio is. IESB mention that New Line previously had rights to Venom 8 years ago, which reverted back to Marvel. However, the question is who has the rights to Venom, as Sony used the character in Spiderman 3. With the recent deal struck between Marvel and the Writer Guild Of America, it could be that Marvel have the rights. As of yet there has been no official announcement, so things are not concrete as of yet.  However, it does raise a few questions. Will Topher Grace reprise his role, or will Venom be re-cast? Venom is known for being a villain, so what will the storyline be? It is rare in Hollywood that we see the film from the ‘bad guys’ point of view.

We may get these questions answered in the future, if all goes to plan. Venom was a fan favourite for the thrid Spiderman film, and some were left disappointed by the lack of screen time he got. It felt as though they simply put him in because the fans wanted him, and found a small gap for that to happen. The word ‘crammed’ came to mind after people saw the third film, so maybe if Venom gets his own film the fans can get a high dose of him that they have been craving.

What are your thought?

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