Sony is perhaps much more serious about this whole Spider-Man spin-off universe than we may have thought. We've known that they are working on a Venom movie, which will star Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock, as well as Silver & Black, which will center on Silver Sable and Black Cat. Now comes word that the studio is also working on a couple of different spin-offs that will feature Kraven the Hunter and Mysterio.

The Hollywood Reporter broke the news as part of a huge interview with Sony's Tom Rothman, who detailed some of the studio's plans for their Marvel Universe, which was recently revealed to take place in the same world as Spider-Man: Homecoming. Knowing that, the news that Sony is working on Kraven and Mysterio projects suddenly becomes a whole lot more interesting. Here's what THR had to say about it.

"Other projects will focus on Kraven the Hunter and Mysterio. The idea, says a studio source, is to build out a world gradually rather than launch one immediately, as they had been trying with Spider-Man villain ensemble Sinister Six, which has been shelved."

That may be a relatively small mention, but there are potentially huge implications there. Starting with Kraven the Hunter, he is a very classic Spider-Man villain, but his interest level to fans is inherently tied to him appearing on screen with Spidey. That primarily has to do with the fact that the Kraven's Last Hunt storyline, which features Kraven hunting down and (seemingly) successfully killing Spider-Man, is one of the most beloved stories from the Spider-Man comics and something fans have wanted to see on the screen for a long time. However, since Amy Pascal recently confirmed that Tom Holland's Peter Parker exists in this universe, and THR's report says the goal is to get him to appear in some of these spin-offs, Kraven's Last Hunt could be on the table. That's speculative, but we can't rule it out.

As for Mysterio, he is also a very classic Spider-Man bad guy and he has an interesting history with the movies. Sam Raimi's vision for Spider-Man 4, which sadly never came to pass, was reportedly going to feature Mysterio as the main villain. He is a master of illusion, a hypnotist and roboticist who can use his power of illusion to make himself quite the deadly and formidable foe. Also, there's that sweet costume with the fishbowl helmet. So it looks like he may get the chance to appear in a movie yet. Again, it seems hard to imagine him headlining a movie on his own, but we'll see what Sony has in mind.

We still have a lot of questions as to how this Sony universe is going to work with the MCU, but this is getting very interesting. Lots of characters fans have wanted to see on screen for a long time are possibly going to get their day, but they largely hinge on Spider-Man being involved. We'll have to wait and see how this all unfolds, but we should learn a lot when Spider-Man: Homecoming arrives next month, and even more when Venom hits theaters next year.