The film opens as a space shuttle from the Life Foundation crash-lands in East Malaysia. Medics arrive on the scene and recover one survivor, astronaut J.J. Jameson III (Chris O'Hara). Jameson is brought into an ambulance where something that has latched onto him has come alive and attacks those inside the vehicle, causing it to flip and crash. An EMT (Michelle Lee) steps out of the wreckage, now playing host to the alien entity known as the symbiote.
In San Francisco, we are introduced to reporter Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy), who lives with his fiance, a lawyer named Anne Weying (Michelle Williams), who is set to represent the Life Foundation and its CEO, Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed). Eddie is well-known for his TV news show, "The Eddie Brock Report", where he undergoes investigative stories to share with others. When he gets to work, Eddie's boss (Ron Cephas Jones) sends him to interview Drake, but he asks Eddie to not press Drake with any questions about his work. Anne asks the same since she knows Eddie can be hotheaded, which is what got him driven out of New York.
Eddie finds an email on Anne's computer with information regarding three confirmed deaths resulting from the shuttle crash. Against his orders, Eddie goes to interview Drake about his space travel program, but then goes off-script and starts to ask Drake about the deaths and how he is responsible for them. Drake cuts the interview short, and Eddie's boss fires him. Anne also gets fired, and she breaks up with Eddie.
