Venom is finally getting a shot at cinematic redemption in a few weeks, but with one key caveat: Spider-Man won't play a role in the character's origin story. Because Peter Parker brought the Venom symbiote to Earth and was bonded to it for a while before it found its way to Eddie Brock in the comics, the Venom movie obviously needed to take creative liberties with how it paired Tom Hardy's version of Eddie with this alien creature. Just like in the main 616 comics universe, the Venom symbiote hail from another world in the movie, but rather than come to Earth on its own, it's discovered in outer space with the other symbiotes and brought back. Venom VFX supervisor Paul Franklin explained:
We see, at the beginning of the film, the moment when the symbiotes are collected up by a Life Foundation space probe, which finds them on a comet drifting through space, approaching Earth. And the space probe is out there looking for signs of life, and they can't believe their luck. There's life signals everywhere, all across this asteroid. The symbiotes seem to actively want to be collected. Because it's all part of their plan to come to Earth. They're looking for planets where they can find hosts to inhabit. They've never really found a place where they can exist in harmony with the life forms of whatever planet they find themselves on.
Symbiotes looking to find hosts for themselves is par for the course, and this usually leads to the creatures attempting to conquer the planets they visit. Such is the case with Venom, as Paul Franklin also mentions during his interview with IGN that the symbiotes subsequently join forces with the Life Foundation, which is already secretly conducting unethical experiments and now evidently sees the aliens as a way to take control of Earth. Ironically, the thing that will stand in the way of them accomplishing that goal is someone powered by one of those very symbiotes, though Eddie will struggle with pointing his symbiote's more violent tendencies on criminals rather than the innocent.
So far, aside from Venom himself, the only other symbiote-powered character who's been officially accounted for in the Venom movie is Riot. It will primarily be bonded with Riz Ahmed's Carlton Drake, but since Riot has also been described as a "body hopper," presumably Drake won't be its only host. Make no mistake, though, there will be plenty of other symbiotes showing up in Venom (one of the movie's story influences is Planet of the Symbiotes, after all), and it's up to Eddie Brock to stop them from spreading across our world. And even if the anti-hero does break up the Life Foundation's plans, that doesn't mean the symbiote problems will end there.
Venom hits theaters on October 5 and is the first installment of the Sony Spider-Verse. If you're interested in learning what other movies are arriving for the remainder of the year, check out our 2018 release schedule.
