By Creative Media Times

Riz Ahmed (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) is in talks to join Sony’s upcoming Venom movie, Variety reports. Though the article mentions that Ahmed will play a “popular Marvel Comics character”, no specific details of the casting was provided. Plot details are also kept under wraps.

Ahmed recently appeared in two other major franchise films last year: the first Star Wars Anthology film, Rogue One and the fifth installment of the Bourne film series Jason Bourne.

Tom Hardy will play the title character Venom and his most well-known incarnation Eddie Brock, a journalist who is also Spider-Man’s nemesis. Venom was originally conceived as a super-villain. But the symbiote sentient alien character has since evolved into an antihero.

The movie is Sony’s first spin-off based on it’s Spider-Man franchise, but Sony has stated previously that “Venom” will be stand-alone film unrelated to the Spider-Man universe, which includes the Sony/Marvel Studios collab Spider-Man: Homecoming.

Venom is set to be directed by Ruben Fleischer from the script by Scott Rosenberg (“Jumanji”) and Jeff Pinkner (“The Dark Tower”). Venom is set to for an Oct. 5, 2018 release.