Superhero movies are everywhere, and now Sony is trying a new strategy by crafting a cinematic universe around the supporting characters of Spider-Man lore. With the web crawler being apart of the behemoth MCU, the first of these movies is finally hitting theaters with Venom. Ruben Fleischer's blockbuster will be an origin story for Eddie Brock, played by Tom Hardy. Hardy is also voicing the antihero title character-- sharing scenes with himself in the process. Venom was previously adapted into live-action with Sam Raimi's less than stellar Spider-Man 3, although he's looking decidedly different in the new movie. CinemaBlend's Sean O'Connell recently spoke with director Venom Ruben Fleischer, where he explained the effort to make the character look as different from Topher Grace's version as possible.
The process of creating Venom as a fully CG character was the leap of faith from the beginning. In Spider-Man 3, they did it practically and we knew that we wanted to distinguish our movie from that movie. And also technology has evolved so much in that time that it felt like we could do a photo-real Venom for this movie. ... But yeah, it was a long process. The thing that we luckily had as a touchstone was just the way he looks in the comics. And I was really specific about, you know, there's many iterations of Venom. So I was really specific about which comics we wanted to draw from, providing them with tons of panels to use as inspiration.
It looks like Venom's fundamental appearance change is mostly a sign of the times. The capabilities of CGI and visual affects have improved greatly since Spider-Man 3 arrived in 2007. The Raimi movies relied heavily on practical affects, resulting in a Venom that was far more human in appearance. But the big guy is a hulking monster in Venom, which should make comic book fans very happy.
Ruben Fleischer spoke with CinemaBlend editor Sean O'Connell at the recent Venom press junket. The character's appearance and physical presence is being praised from early critics, and has already been shown off in the brief scenes released ahead of time. When fully transformed, Venom is a giant creature, with a bulky physique ripped directly from the beloved comic book pages. His symbiote abilities can also be far more creative and unpredictable, as modern visual affects create the impossible onscreen.
Ruben Fleischer's comments also show how methodically he tried to separate Venom from previous web swinging movies. Tom Hardy's dual Venom characters seem nothing like that of Topher Grace's in Spider-Man 3, with audiences able to accept a new onscreen version of the iconic character, possibly crafting a new shared universe in the process.
You can catch Venom in theaters October 5th. In the meantime, check out our 2019 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.
