Following plenty of speculation, director Ruben Fleischer has moved to give an insight in to what to expect from the Tom Hardy-headlined Venom by revealing which comic-book arcs will be serving as inspiration.

Speaking at Sony Pictures’ panel at Sao Paulo’s Comic Con Experience 2017 (as reported by Collider), Fleischer confirmed that Venom: Lethal Protector and Planet of the Symbiotes will be the basis for the picture.

Reports from a month or two back had Lethal Protector pegged as an influence on the film, and that 1993 tale places Eddie Brock/Venom as more of an antihero rather than outright villain. Moving to San Francisco to fight the good fight, things go array when the Life Foundation kidnap Brock and create five offspring of sorts: Scream, Phage, Riot, Lasher, and Agony. To help ultimately take down these crazed symbiote soldiers, Venom ends up teaming with Spider-Man.

As for Planet of the Symbiotes, that 1995 arc again saw Venom teaming with Spidey, although this time we also had the Scarlet Spider along for the ride, too. That trio came together to investigate a slew of symbiote-related murders which Brock actually thought he himself may have carried out. Again, though, it’s the five aforementioned symbiotes from Lethal Protector who are behind the murder spree… and things only go from bad to worse when the deranged Cletus Kasady is released from prison and once again becomes Carnage, the most brutal, murderous symbiote of them all!

Joining Hardy in Venom are Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed, Jenny Slate, Reid Scott and Scott Haze.

At present, the film is set for an October 2018 release, with it being the first of Sony’s shared Spider-Verse of movies which will also feature the Silver Sable and Black Cat team-up, Silver and Black, and a solo movie for the vampiric Michael Morbius. Elsewhere, there are also rumoured plans of solo outings for both Kraven the Hunter and Mysterio.