Venom

Sony is moving forward with their Venom film, and Tom Hardy is attached to star and Ruben Fleischer will direct.

It is still scheduled to be in theaters October 5, 2018.

So they're going forward with this after all?

Hm. Not quite sure how to feel about this...

I mean, can't they at least wait until Spider-Man: Homecoming comes out before blurting out something like "hey, we're coming up with our own Marvel Universe! We rock!"?

It's almost as if they don't have any faith that Homecoming will be any good...

Having Tom Hardy and the director of Zombieland does admittedly sound promising, but I don't think it's enough for me to drop my skepticism...

So is this movie in the MCU or not? The article gives that impression but I don't know if Marvel wants Sony doing all these spin-offs.

It's not.

Sony is flexing its proverbial muscle to make it noticeable they still control the film property.

I wonder if it will be any better than their last revival attempt.

Must. Resist. Obvious. Batman reference.

I know the one you were going to point out.

So is it confirmed that Spider-Man never existed in this universe and Venom's origin is completely separated from Spidey's? Does this mean Venom's not going to have the spider insignia or shoot webs?

I just have serious doubts about this, especially since Marvel's not going to have any input on this. I mean, there's already the animated Spider-Man movie in development, I don't think it's that necessary to throw in a fifth Spider-Man related universe in the span of a decade.

I also recall Sony claiming that their aiming for an R-rating for this movie, so I can probably assume Carnage is going to be the villain.

The cynic in me says that the only reason this exists is because Sony wants to capitalize on the rising R-rated Superhero movie market and as a result we will end up with an In-Name Only movie that neglects Brock's and the symbiote's characters in favor of making it scary and "edgy".

That's exactly what I'm afraid of too.

I would much rather have Marvel set up an Agent Venom storyline personally.

Maybe they might take some inspiration from that #TRUTHINJOURNALISM Fan Film? It's pretty well done in my opinion, and it would give the movie a distinctive look and feel.

Weren't there some murmurings that Life (2017) would turn out to be a Venom prequel?

edited 19th May '17 9:30:21 PM by TobiasDrake

I think that was just a fan theory or something.

As for the film, if this is rated R in an attempt to follow Deadpool and Logan making R rated superhero films lucrative now, then it can only go one of two ways: it's an obvious cash in that fails (the most likely option given Sony's track record), or somehow it turns out to be good. Either way, it might lead to the MCU not doing a symbiote related story, which I'd personally be fine with.

I'm just trying to figure out how you can even do a Venom origin story without Peter. He's integral to both of their plots and is the entire reason why the symbiote and Eddie bond in the first place.

Nothing saying they can't cast Spider Man in a bit part.

Superman had a bit part in Supergirl's 2nd season.

Heck, the Symbiote had a bit part in Spider Man 3 and it was the central antagonist.

Except there probably is something saying that they can't.

For the record, Life turned out not to be a Venom prequel. It could however be reasonably turned into a Carnage prequel. The creature behaves way more aggressively than Venom's symbiote tends to (like Carnage), and it does look more like Carnage's symbiote both in appearance (it sports a Slasher Smile) and in abilities (multi-purpose limbs) and it doesn't seem to be particularly fond of fire (which is Carnage's Achilles' Heel).

Sony is great at self sabotage but introducing two conflicting live action cinematic Peter Parkers would be needlessly confusing.

edited 20th May '17 6:50:43 AM by comicwriter

The more I think about it, the more I see how they could make a Venom film without Spider-Man. Especially if he's to be the protagonist; I assume that would borrow heavily from Flash Thompson's run with the symbiote.

If they wanted to make a perfect 1:1 adaptation of the character, it's impossible, but what film ever does? Spider-Man is more important to the characterization of Eddie Brock, Flash Thompson, and the Venom symbiote than to the actual lore and mechanics thereof. He's a motivation when he's not just a character flaw; Flash-Venom's interactions with Spider-Man could roughly be described as Murder Tourettes that distracted him from what he was actually trying to do.

Like a dog noticing a squirrel. "We have to get across town! There's a thing to do! Let's go fight this—SPIDER-MAN SPIDER-MAN SPIDER-MAN BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK—what were we doing?"

The concept of Venom as an antihero doesn't necessarily require him to set aside moments to go, "Oh, and by the way, I really hate this one guy. Anyways, back to the plot."

The concept of Venom as a villain doesn't even necessarily need him to, because unless he's supposed to be the villain of a Spider-Man movie specifically, the relationship between symbiote and present host is going to be more important than whoever wore the suit last. That's the heart of your villain: the symbiote corrupting Eddie, Eddie corrupting the symbiote, or the two bonding over shared dickishness. Spidey can be the motivation for it, but he doesn't have to be.

edited 20th May '17 7:16:42 AM by TobiasDrake

Clearly one way to solve the of the two peter Parkers would be make one of them a clone,and thus Clone Saga begins.

explanation

edited 20th May '17 7:17:46 AM by Ultimatum

Like, musing on this further, for as important as Spidey is to the Venom mythos, he also brings in just as many problems. Venom is an Outside-Context Villain for Spidey. Within his Rogues Gallery, Spider-Man typically fights

1. Organized crime.
2. The frequently animal-themed product of science gone horribly wrong or horribly right.
3. And Venom.

Venom is his villain because he's the one who brought the symbiote back from Battleworld, and he's the one who brought it back because someone thought it'd be cool for him to get a cool black suit during the original Secret Wars event. Consequentially, the thing that made him one of Spidey's greatest villains - the long, complex narrative that culminated in us arriving at a point where Spidey duking it out with a body-snatching alien made sense - also makes him incredibly difficult to adapt.

It's hard to introduce Juggernaut to the X-Men franchise without making him a mutant because "SUDDENLY HELL LORDS" is a lot to throw at your film audience in a movie that's not about Hell Lords. Venom has the same problem, except without the easy mutant excuse. The Amazing and Spectacular cartoons as well as the Raimi series each had to throw up their arms as far as introducing him goes and ran with, "SUDDENLY ALIENS but nobody cares anymore because Spidey has a new suit."

Like, did you ever notice that Peter never actually found out what that was about in Spider-Man 3? Venom just sort of happened to him randomly.

It's a hard story to tell. Especially within the time constraints of film, which is why I've been saying for years that if they wanted to make Venom work on the big screen, Spidey needed to spend a movie wearing the symbiote and then fight it in the next. Cutting Spidey out of it so that you just don't have to worry at all about how Venom fits into his world is certainly a different way of going about it, but not necessarily an unworkable one.

edited 20th May '17 7:38:21 AM by TobiasDrake

Hell, the comic writers didn't even decide it was an alien until they decided to get rid of it. Meaning they gave Peter a suit that repair itself, disguise itself as civilian clothing and did not need web cartridges and gave no explanation for why it could do that.

I also wonder if they'll stick with the symbiote being a corruptive force or just make it so that it wants to bond with Brock.

edited 20th May '17 9:56:41 AM by windleopard

It can be done but it's like making a Joker movie without Batman. You can make it but it extremely limits its storytelling potential.

Are you completely divorcing it from Spidey? Like an anti hero who likes the films and saw Homecoming is bonded to a symbiote? Because that's a bizarre take, but it could be interesting.