The Big Bad of Tom Hardy's Venom will apparently be the only Marvel villain more sadistic than Venom himself.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Sony's first entrant in its spin-off of the Spider-Man franchise will introduce both anti-hero Venom and his murderous alien counterpart Carnage.
Like Venom, Carnage is created when an alien symbiote bonds with one of Spidey's arch-enemies — but unlike Venom, Carnage takes control of all already-evil serial killer Cletus Kasady to his bidding.
To give you some idea of how destructive Carnage can be, hated enemies Spider-Man and Venom have at times teamed up in the pages of Marvel Comics to be rid of him.
This will be the first live-action film appearance for Carnage, although the character has appeared in Spider-Man animated TV series many times in the past.
Whether we'll ever see Tom Holland, our current live action Spidey, team up with Tom Hardy to battle Carnage remains to be seen at this point.
Despite Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige previously drawing a line between Spider-Man: Homecoming and Sony's spin-offs, his Sony counterpart Amy Pascal said this week that Venom is a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
"[Venom and fellow spinoff Silver and Black] are all playing in the world we are creating for Peter Parker," Pascal said in a joint interview with Kevin Feige.
"They'll be adjuncts to it, it may be different locations but it will still all be in the same world, and they will be connected to each other as well."
Judging by the sheer terror in Feige's eyes as his colleague made that announcement, we're not convinced that they're on the same page…
Spider-Man: Homecoming will be released in cinemas on July 5, 2017, with Venom following on October 5, 2018.
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