Venom: The Last Dance appears to be the end of the story for the Spider-Man adjacent hero/villain who never met Spider-Man. And while the new Venom film has met with the same mixed response from critics of the other entries, Tom Hardy’s performance as Eddie Brock is generally praised. However, some credit needs to be given to the shoes.
Eddie Brock’s footwear is something of a running joke (pun intended) throughout the newest Marvel movie. When CinemaBlend’s own Sean O’Connell had a chance to speak with Tom Hardy and director Kelly Marcel, Hardy felt the Crocs were a symbolic shoe and one that he jokes he plans to start selling. Hardy said…
It is all in the details, you know? If life isn't hard enough anyway for him, why not give him footwear that just doesn't stick around. It doesn't stick around long enough to support you. … We wanted to promote Brock’s Crocs. That's what it's all about. And that superheroes can wear Crocs. They're a very comfortable shoe. It's a hero's shoe. Brock’s Crocs.
If you watch the full clip above, Kelly Marcel admits she had no deeper symbolic meaning in Eddie Brock’s shoes. She just thought it was funny to have Brock’s shoes be a problem for him, she says she enjoyed messing with Tom Hardy on set. But now that I’ve heard Tom Hardy’s explanation, despite him he’s joking, I’m having trouble not seeing it that way.
I'm not sure how well Brock's Crocs would sell if he started marketing them to other superheroes. I've been told they're quite comfortable and Tom Hardy seems to agree. Having said that, if you don't have an alien symbiote protecting your feet, they don't seem like a great choice for running across rooftops under cover of darkness looking for evildoers. But I guess Eddie Brock would know best.
The shoe joke is part and parcel of what has made the Venom films strangely compelling and largely successful, although few would argue they’re good. While Venom: The Last Dance won the box office last weekend, it did so unimpressively. Time will tell if the movie can eventually find success, though it will almost certainly become a streaming hit as soon as it arrives on a major platform.
What the future holds for Venom and his Crocs is a significant question right now. While the film does seem to mark a definitive ending for Venom and Eddie Brock as we know them here, Venom: The Last Dance does have post-credit scenes that tease the future of the story as a whole. And there is that whole symbiote in the MCU thing that hasn’t been dealt with. Whether or not we see Venom again, one must ask the most important question: what shoes will he be wearing?
