CULVER CITY, Calif. — Sony is developing its first animated feature based on Venom, extending the studio’s Marvel anti-hero franchise beyond the three live-action films toplined by Tom Hardy.
Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein have been tapped to direct the project. The pair most recently steered the franchise entry Final Destination: Bloodlines, which grossed $315.0 million and was described as the highest-grossing and best-reviewed installment in that series.
The animated move is being set up at a notably early stage. No writer is attached, and Sony Pictures Animation is opening a writers room to develop script material and takes, according to people familiar with the project. Producer roles are also not finalized: Amy Pascal, Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach—who worked on the live-action Venom films—are likely to produce, but the project’s nascency leaves those details unresolved.
Hardy is understood to be involved in some capacity, though it is not yet clear whether that means producing and/or returning to voice Venom after playing Eddie Brock, the character who bonds with the alien symbiote, across the live-action trilogy.
Animation development begins as the live-action grosses trend downward
Sony’s live-action Venom series opened as a major commercial result and then tapered over subsequent installments, based on the reported worldwide box office totals:
- Venom (2018): $856 million
- Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021): $506.8 million
- Venom: The Last Dance (2024): $478.9 million
While the trilogy has remained profitable, the trend gives Sony an incentive to diversify how it exploits the character. Moving Venom into animation would give the studio another format to keep Venom-related output active while it assesses the next phase of its Marvel character strategy and its broader slate of films based on intellectual property licensed from Marvel rather than produced by Marvel Studios itself.
The approach also connects to the track record of Sony Pictures Animation, which has achieved both commercial success and awards recognition with the animated Spider-Verse films, written and produced by Phil Lord and Chris Miller. Those films demonstrated that animation can support more stylized storytelling and multiverse-driven plotting than most live-action superhero releases, a flexibility that could shape how Venom is repositioned for younger and international audiences.
At the same time, Sony is operating within an increasingly scrutinized studio environment. Because major franchise investments can materially affect a company’s financial outlook, decisions on long-running IP such as Venom ultimately sit within the governance and disclosure framework overseen by regulators like the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, whose rules are codified in statutes including the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Large-scale animation projects, which require years of spend before release, are typically vetted at board and audit-committee level as part of a studio’s long-range planning.
That said, the studio is not close to production. With no writer yet attached and development moving through a writers-room process, the project is in foundational packaging rather than the later-stage build typically associated with animated feature pipelines. Sony is effectively signaling intent to keep Venom active while retaining the ability to recalibrate tone, target demographic and budget as the script and visual concept evolve.
Who is involved—and what remains unresolved
Sony’s early configuration combines established franchise producers with directors who have recently worked inside an existing studio-owned IP series. For executives and shareholders, that pairing offers a measure of risk management: the creative team is familiar with delivering within the constraints of branded, corporate-controlled storytelling while still refreshing a long-running property.
Lipovsky and Stein are additionally attached to work with Chris Columbus on Gremlins. They are also developing to direct the original thriller Long Lost, described as What Lies Beneath meets Rosemary’s Baby, set up at Universal with Amblin Entertainment producing. The filmmakers are represented by Verve, Ground Control and Lichter Grossman.
Venom’s publication history remains central to how the character is positioned across media. Created by writer Bill Michelinie and artist Todd McFarlane, Venom was introduced as a villain in 1988’s Amazing Spider-Man No. 300, later receiving a first solo comic in 1993. The character’s first big-screen appearance came in Sam Raimi’s third Spider-Man film, portrayed by Topher Grace. The character now sits within a cluster of Sony-controlled Marvel characters—separate from Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe—governed by long-standing licensing and distribution arrangements between the companies. Those deals, while confidential in detail, have shaped which heroes and villains can appear together on screen and under what conditions, a constraint any animated Venom narrative will have to navigate.
The animated feature also lands at a time when Sony is expanding Venom’s presence across formats and hardware, from theatrical releases to games and consumer electronics. The same corporate division that oversees film and TV productions also benefits from synergies with Sony’s premium devices, from PlayStation to high-end cameras such as the Alpha line and large-format televisions including the latest Bravia models, which are marketed as optimized for cinematic and gaming experiences. That cross-division coordination is increasingly central to how the company justifies franchise spending internally and to investors.
For now, Sony’s animated Venom feature has no announced writer, no confirmed producer deal points, and no confirmed statement on whether Hardy will voice the character, with Sony Pictures Animation moving first on a writers room to generate a script. Until a screenplay, budget range and release strategy are locked, the project remains an early-stage bet that Sony can extend one of its most valuable non-Disney-controlled superhero assets into a new medium while aligning with the regulatory and fiduciary oversight that governs its broader franchise decisions.
