Trivia / Venom (1981)

• As Himself: Averted in a roundabout way with David Ball, curator of reptiles and expert snake handler at the London Zoo. He's portrayed in-universe by Michael Gough, while the real Ball served as the snake handler for the scenes with the black mamba and had a brief cameo on set.
• Creative Differences: Original director Tobe Hooper quit because of "creative differences". The original cinematographer Anthony B. Richmond also quit for the same reason after ten days of shooting.
• He Also Did: Screenwriter Robert Carrington also scripted the 1967 film version of Wait Until Dark. This was on the other hand, one of Michael Kamen's first major movies.
• Hostility on the Set: While making the movie, Oliver Reed and Klaus Kinski absolutely hated each other. The jovial, fun-loving Reed would often provoke the intense, humorless Kinski into losing his temper (which wasn't a difficult task). The pair came to blows at least once.
• Money, Dear Boy: Klaus Kinski chose to do this film instead of Raiders of the Lost Ark because the salary was higher. In his autobiography, Kinski Uncut, he also stated that the script for that movie was "moronically shitty".
  • The rest of the A-list cast in this B-list film (e.g. Oliver Reed) were almost certainly there for the same reason.
• Romance on the Set: Actress Cornelia Sharpe and producer Martin Bregman were married in the same 1981 year that this movie was first released.
• Saved from Development Hell: This was originally set up by Paramount around 1977 with Sean Connery lined up to star. David Sherwin wrote the first script treatment.

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