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The sudden and unexpected hot back issue of the day is Marvel Spotlight (vol. 2) #9. This obscure 1980 book was quarter-bin fodder two weeks ago, and if you were a stickler for condition, okay, maybe a top-grade copy might set you back $5. But last week’s Symbiote Spider-Man: King in Black #1 has sent comic shop employees bin-diving and set eBay a-flutter. Copies of Marvel Spotlight #9 are suddenly selling for $25-$50. Why?

Blame ‘Mister E.’ The character – who appears to be closely related to the Venom symbiote – makes a dramatic appearance in Symbiote Spider-Man: King in Black #1, part of Marvel’s new, months-long symbiote-spanning event (opens in new tab). But while he seems like a new character, it’s not his first appearance. His first (and for four decades his last) appearance actually took place in Marvel Spotlight #9 in a Captain Universe story written by a couple of guys you might have heard of named Bill Mantlo and Steve Ditko.  

“I keep having dozens of website orders arrive from speculators for the exact same title within minutes of each other, as everyone is simultaneously trying to corner the market in select issues,” said Chuck Rozanski of venerable Mile High Comics. “Marvel Spotlight #9 is the one that blew up a couple of days ago.”

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Mile High has moved near mint copies of Marvel Spotlight #9 to $120-$150 in anticipation of seeing how demand eventually shakes out. MyComicShop.com, another major online retailer, shows no copies of the issue in stock (but plenty of #1-#8 and #10-#11 at $2-$3, if you’re interested).

And as always, not that all comics are graded, but Certified Guaranty Company (CGC), has graded a mere 15 copies of Marvel Spotlight #9 to date; eight of them at a grade of 9.8 (out of 10). One would expect many more will be hitting CGC’s offices in the days and weeks to come.

Being a symbiote host in the Marvel Universe is becoming a prestigious gig. Check out our countdown of Marvel’s greatest Venom hosts.

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The dreaded, powerful god of the symbiotes is arriving on Earth soon and he’s not alone. He’ll be bringing his massive army of symbiotic monsters and is the newest great threat to the Marvel Universe at large.

The upcoming event King In Black is the culmination of writer Donny Cates and artist Ryan Stegman’s remodeling of everything fans have known about the Venom symbiote and the wider symbiote mythos inside Marvel. The seeds have been planted across Silver Surfer: Black (opens in new tab), Thor (opens in new tab), and of course Venom (opens in new tab), and now the fruition is at hand.

Knull is not just making his arrival, he’s preparing for war.

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What is King In Black? 

King In Black is a crossover mega event that will encompass the ongoing Venom title,
a core King in Black limited series, several spin-offs and one-shots, and also take over other Marvel ongoing titles like Black Cat, Spider-Woman, S.W.O.R.D., and more. The main story is a five-part series in itself, though, out this December.

“As far as event books go, this is the coolest, darkest, most heavy metal, Cthulhu dark horror thing I’ve ever been able to do,” Cates stated in a video announcement in early September (opens in new tab). “I still can’t believe that Marvel is letting us go as dark and scary as we’re going.”

“After a campaign across the galaxy, Knull’s death march arrives to Earth and, worse yet, he hasn’t come alone!” reads Marvel’s official description of King In Black #1. “With an army of hundreds of thousands of symbiote dragons at his command, the King in Black is a force unlike any Earth’s heroes have ever faced.”

Who is involved in King In Black?

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Obviously, the true Venom, Eddie Brock, will be the main protagonist of King In Black, but the cover to the first issue hints he won’t be alone in the fight against Knull. As we’ve seen from the King In Black #1 preview, Brock will be joined by the Avengers, while the X-Men, and longtime rival Spider-Man are hinted on the cover, teaming up in trying to defeat the dark god. It’s possible in the main Venom book we’ll see Brock’s allies grow from there, and it’s also a possibility the events in Thor will bring more Asgardians to Brock’s side as well.

Considering the tie-ins, we can expect the likes of Captain America, Iron Man, Doctor Doom, Namor, Black Cat, Joe Fixit, and Jessica Drew. The Namor limited series is a flashback story with a teen Namor and Atlanteans encountering Knull and his forces decades ago.

However, a new force revealed itself to Eddie…sort of. In Web of Venom: Wraith #1, (opens in new tab) the Kree outsider Wraith faced off against Knull and it did not go well for Wraith. Knull easily rips into Wraith and sends him into the great void of space.

While Wraith is floating, he encounters a great bright light, and this light leaves Wraith a message, and he takes it right to Eddie Brock on Earth. Now powerless, the Kree soldier only has moments before he faces the inevitable oblivion, and he uses those moments to warn Eddie that something else is coming for him: a god of light.

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We’ve known that Knull is as old as the emptiness of the universe, if not older, but now this opposite force is coming to, hopefully, help Eddie and the rest of Earth in their fight against the dark god.

Brock previously warned the Avengers about Knull and what he’s capable of, so expect a colossal fight on a gigantic scale of literally light versus dark.

When is King In Black coming out?

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The King in Black series itself begins December 2 with King in Black #1, but the event will actually begin a few weeks before. Here’s what’s been announced so far:

• November 4: Web of Venom: Empyre’s End #1
• November 18: Symbiote Spider-Man: King in Black #1 (of 5)
• December 2: King in Black #1 (of 5)
• December 2: King in Black Handbook #1
• December 2: Atlantis Attacks #5 (of 5)
• December 2: The Union #1 (of 5)
• December 9: Venom #31
• December 9: King in Black: Immortal Hulk #1
• December 9: King in Black: Namor #1 (of 5)
• December 16: Symbiote Spider-Man: King in Black #2 (of 5)
• December 16: Black Cat #1
• December 23: King in Black #2 (of 5)
• December 23: Spider-Woman #7
• December 30: King in Black: Iron Man/Doctor Doom #1
• December 30: King in Black: Namor #2 (of 5)
• January 2021 (no date specified): Black Cat #2
• January 2021 (no date specified): King in Black #3 (of 5)
• January 2021 (no date specified): King in Black: Planet of the Symbiotes #1 (of 3)
• January 2021 (no date specified): King in Black: Return of the Valkyries #1 (of 4)
• January 2021 (no date specified): King in Black: Return of the Valkyries #2 (of 4)
• January 2021 (no date specified): King in Black: Gwenom & Carnage #1 (of 3)
• January 2021 (no date specified): King in Black: Black Knight #1
• January 2021 (no date specified): King in Black: Thunderbolts #1 (of 3)
• January 2021 (no date specified): Daredevil #26 
• January 2021 (no date specified): Deadpool #10
• January 2021 (no date specified): Guardians of the Galaxy #10
• January 2021 (no date specified): Savage Avengers #17
• January 2021 (no date specified): S.W.O.R.D. #2

How does King In Black fit into the rest of the Marvel Universe?

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With Marvel big events, it usually touches titles across the board, even if not directly involved. With Knull bringing his dark army to Earth and set out to conquer the planet along with the cosmos, Marvel’s heroes (and maybe some villains) aren’t willing to just roll over so easily. From Atlantis to New York to all over, there’s a good chance Knull’s ooze-y grip will reach out for it.

Considering everything we’ve seen and how ambitious and dark the series will be, readers should expect major changes to the Marvel Universe, especially when it comes to the Venom corner.

The post Marvel King in Black event: story, cast, schedule, and everything else we know appeared first on Game News.

Variety (opens in new tab) shared a report that Sony has officially pushed Venom: Let There Be Carnage from its original release date of October 2, 2020 to June 25, 2021. While that means it’s the latest film in a string of movies and TV shows to be delayed due coronavirus concerns (opens in new tab) (there’s already getting to be a pileup of former summer movies aiming for the end of the year), it also confirms that the superpowered anti-hero sequel directed by Andy Serkis will have a starring role for Carnage.

As was teased at the end of Venom (spoiler alert), Woody Harrelson’s Cletus Kasady becomes the host for another symbiote called Carnage. Tom Hardy is set to reprise his role as Eddie Brock, the host for Venom. Stephen Graham was also confirmed for the cast late last year, along with reports that Venom 2 may target an R-rating in response to the success of Joker (opens in new tab).

“What Joker does is it tells you that you can succeed,” producer Matt Tolbach told Joblo (opens in new tab) at the time. “For a very long time, that was the narrative. And Deadpool sort of wrestled that to the turf, and then Logan, but for a long time, that was considered totally forbidden. So you know, I think it’s the greatest thing in the world that R-rated movies are being embraced by massive audiences. And it just means that there are more opportunities for that kind of storytelling.”

The big remaining mystery is whether Sony will move to bring Tom Holland as Spider-Man into the Venom story, after a falling out with Disney (opens in new tab) (among other logistical concerns) made it impossible in the first film.

While we dream, check out our ranked listing of the best Spider-Man movies (opens in new tab). 

• Movie release dates (opens in new tab)
• Every movie release date delayed by coronavirus (opens in new tab)
• New Netflix movies and shows (opens in new tab)
• New Disney Plus movies and shows (opens in new tab)

The post Venom 2 delayed to summer 2021 but at least it has an official title now appeared first on Game News.

As revealed on the Collider (opens in new tab) podcast, comedian Jay Washington said, “I’ll tell you the truth: Tom Holland did film a scene for Venom… Marvel saw the movie and was like ‘Take this out. Take this scene out.,’” before detailing, “Peter Parker was in Venom not Spider-Man.”

It’s important to make the distinction that, presumably for rights purposes, the version of Tom Holland’s character in Venom would have been Peter Parker and not Spider-Man. So, the webhead most definitely wouldn’t have suited up to fight against (or alongside) Tom Hardy’s Venom.

Still, if this rings true, it means we missed out on a possible meeting between Hardy and Holland’s characters – but no further reasoning was given for why Marvel wouldn’t want the then-MCU star to appear in the 2018 Sony Pictures movie, nor what the scene would have entailed.

Holland actually missed out on appearing as Spider-Man/Peter Parker in another Sony movie last year, too. The actor revealed (opens in new tab) that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (opens in new tab) was going to include, “another Peter Parker… There was like a scene in a train station or something, and it was going to be like an Easter egg. I was going to walk through the background or something, and say, like, ‘Hey, kid.’”

Meanwhile, Andy Serkis has been announced as the Venom 2 director (opens in new tab), and his first Instagram post reacting to the news involved the motion-capture legend reading a ‘90s comic book involving, you guessed it, a Venom crossover with Spider-Man. Maybe the Two Tom dream isn’t dead just yet.

Relive the webhead’s greatest adventures with our look at the best Spider-Man movies (opens in new tab).

The post A Tom Holland Spider-Man cameo was reportedly cut from Venom appeared first on Game News.

The moment in question sees the Riot Symbiote attach itself to an old woman in Malaysia before travelling to the Life Foundation HQ in San Francisco. Then… six months pass while Tom Hardy’s Eddie loses everything important to him – and nothing.

Yep, the old lady, now with extra Symbiote, is still milling about in Malaysia despite 1) Desperately wanting to get to the States and 2) Symbiotes needing to hop from host to host every few weeks before they burn out (unless they’re a perfect match like Eddie).  

So, what was the deal with that? Speaking to GameSpot (opens in new tab), Fleischer explains: “That’s one of our few, hopefully, few logic bumps. But we had to have a passage of time in order to show Eddie’s downfall, and that was the one thing that doesn’t entirely track.”

And in the six-month interim period between Eddie losing his job and breaking up with his fiancé? Riot was (probably) going on a gigantic killing spree, as Fleischer says, “I like to think that old lady was going around murdering all throughout Malaysia, and she was just having a good old time just shooting shards through different people in Malaysia.”

Sure, that makes no sense, but let’s be honest here: I really want to see a deleted scene of an old lady going all gooey John Wick before jumping in an Uber to the nearest airport…

Need more symbiote-shaped things to cling to? Take a look at what the Venom ending (opens in new tab) means, and what the interesting future the Venom post-credits scenes (opens in new tab) hint at.

The post The Venom director opens up about *that* big plot hole – and explains why it was a mistake appeared first on Game News.

Bear in mind these are digital comics, not printed copies, and you’ll need to read it via a Kindle device, Kindle cloud reader, or the Kindle app (available on iOS and Android). But, this is still a fantastic selection, especially if you want to get an idea of where the MCU might be headed or just see what other adventures the likes of Iron Man, Black Panther, Spider-Man, and the rest get up to when they’re not dominating the box office.

Pretty much everything is on sale (and I only say “pretty much” because I want to leave room for error, but truth be told every Marvel-published comic I’ve seen is 50% or more off sticker price), but if you want some suggestions, here are a few suggestions:

Infinity Gauntlet (opens in new tab) was a major source of inspiration for Avengers: Infinity War (opens in new tab), and likely Avengers 4 as well. If you want to see how the Marvel universe responded to Thanos and the Infinity Gems (yes, they’re gems in the comics, stones in the movies) before, check it out.

Captain Marvel (2014) (opens in new tab) will introduce you to the most recent incarnation of the character. Though there have been other Captain Marvel stories in the past, this is likely to be the closest analogue to what the Captain Marvel movie will portray in 2019.

Venom: Lethal Protector (opens in new tab) is said to be a major source of inspiration for the upcoming Venom movie, and it is so deliciously ’90s. If you’re a fan of this edgy anti-hero and haven’t already read this tale, you owe it to yourself to pick it up.

If you’re more of a Star Wars fan, I highly recommend Star Wars: Darth Vader (2015) (opens in new tab). Taking place between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, this series digs deep into the Sith Lord’s lore and backstory, introducing several characters which even got their own spin-offs. Just make sure you go for the 2015 series. The 2017 run has not been, in my humble opinion, nearly as good.

Got others to recommend? Let us know in the comments!

If that isn’t enough Marvel-ous goodness for you, why not check out every new Marvel movie (opens in new tab) coming soon, as well as our ranking of the best Marvel movies (opens in new tab).  

The post Save big with this Amazon Marvel sale appeared first on Game News.

That’s all set to change, with Tom Hardy playing Eddie Brock (and his snarling symbiote side) in Sony’s upcoming movie (opens in new tab). With Venom taking centre stage here, rather than being relegated to ‘supporting villain’ duties, the film will explore his split personality, head-chomping tendencies and dark sense of humour, if the Venom Comic Con footage (opens in new tab) is anything to go by.

Setting up the character independently from Spider-Man, the film is an origin story for Hardy’s tenacious journalist Eddie Brock, whose investigation into the mysterious (and probably nefarious) Life Foundation leads him into contact with the aforementioned alien symbiote, which takes residence in his body, with a number of alarming side effects….

You can see Brock starting to react to this new stage in his life in this exclusive image, courtesy of our sister publication Total Film magazine (opens in new tab), as he starts to discover new strength while fighting off mysterious assailants who are suddenly very interested in him. Take a look below…

That duality at the core of the character isn’t something unfamiliar to Hardy, and that warring internal double act was key to the attraction for him. “For me, it was the multiple personalities, because to play that, on a kind of epic level, a superhero level, that was the big draw,” he tells Total Film (opens in new tab). “I was like, ‘This is a great character, because he’s a diverse antihero. He’s not a good guy, and he’s not a bad guy.’ He’s connected to this alien who’s not from this planet. They’ve got to figure out an ethical framework between the two of them, and neither of them are run-of-the-mill types. There’s this kind of Odd Couple [relationship] between the two of them. I enjoyed the Jekyll and Hyde nature of that, in a superhero world.”

Read more

No, the Venom movie doesn’t need Spider-Man – and here’s why (opens in new tab)

Hardy’s reputation for intense and conflicted characters made him the ideal pick for the role according to director Ruben Fleischer. “Tom brings so much complexity, and I would say danger, to the roles and characters he plays,” he says. “Those are two inherent qualities of Eddie Brock and Venom, the complexity and the menace. So getting to watch Tom live between these two characters who are sharing a body and having to navigate these two forces simultaneously was really impressive and fun to watch.”

For more on Venom, including more from Hardy, Fleischer, Riz Ahmed, and Michelle Williams, pick up this month’s Total Film magazine (opens in new tab), which hits shelves August 24. Better yet, why not subscribe (opens in new tab) and never miss an issue? Doing so will net you a fancy (not to mention exclusive) subscriber’s cover each month, such as the Venom one below, which current subscribers will already have their hands on. 

Plus, My Favourite Magazines (opens in new tab) will deliver each new issue through your letterbox before it hits stores, and you’ll also save money on the cover price. What are you waiting for?

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The post Tom Hardy fights back in this exclusive Venom image appeared first on Game News.

Are you there, Venom? It’s me, Eddie

I know many of you reading this are probably at least vaguely aware of Venom’s history, if not intimately knowledgeable about the character’s origin story. But just in case you need a refresher: in the comics, “Venom” is not one individual, but two. There is the human half, Eddie Brock (played in this film by Tom Hardy) and there is the symbiote, a sentient blob of alien goo that can shift into any number of shapes and greatly enhance its host’s abilities.

In the main series of comics, the symbiote first bonds with Spider-Man, but is later rejected by the hero. It finds Eddie Brock, a disgraced former journalist, and bonds with him instead. The shared hatred between the two inspires them to fight Spidey together as a singular entity, self-dubbed “Venom.” In the Ultimate series, the symbiote’s origins were synthetic instead of organic and it wasn’t fully sentient – but otherwise the story plays out pretty similar.

In light of this, the biggest issue many seem to have with the trailer should be obvious: there’s almost no screen-time given to the symbiote (we see it squirming in a tube at one point and there’s literally less than a second’s worth of it crawling up Brock’s neck as he screams at the end), no mention of it aside from an indirect allusion when Hardy says we all have our demons, and certainly no imagery of Brock and the symbiote together. For a movie called and centered on the Venom character, this teaser has very little… well, Venom. To someone not familiar with the material, this could be any movie about an experiment gone wrong and a man on the run.

But to play devil’s advocate for a second, maybe that’s a good thing.

Selling tickets vs selling concepts

People often talk about why the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to excite people 10 years on, and we’ve heard the short version of this argument many times: each MCU film tries to inject aspects of various genres into itself. Instead of feeling like an endless parade of generic superhero films, fans have something just a little bit new, just a little bit different to look forward to every few months.

Some bemoan the “Marvel formula” for being predictable – hero has responsibilities thrust upon them that they’re not ready for, hero’s greatest weakness turns out to be their greatest strength (or vice versa), hero fights villain who is basically their mirror image (Ant-Man/Yellow Jacket, Iron Man/Iron Monger, Dr. Strange/Kaecilius, etc) – but keeping the overall foundation the same while tweaking the fine details is what allows each film to feel unique. More important, it helps each film have broad appeal.

With the massive success of the MCU, the cornucopia of high-concept sci-fi and fantasy on TV (Westworld, Game of Thrones, Altered Carbon to name a few), and the absolutely bonkers amount of money that Star Wars rakes in, it can be easy to think that nerds rule the world. And maybe, right now, stories that were once niche and limited to being “for geeks” are the dominant voice in pop culture. But if you’re looking to score a major hit, one big enough to kick off a cinematic universe of your own (which Sony is trying to do with Venom) you still need Bob Brown the tax accountant and Becky Bryant the mortgage broker to want to see your movie.

Go back and watch the first Thor: Ragnarok teaser (opens in new tab). It’s nearly two minutes long, but you can count the number of sentences actually spoken on your hands. If you knew nothing about the character, what would you have gleaned from those 112 seconds? In terms of actual plot, there’s not much revealed – but there doesn’t need to be, because the tone tells you everything you need to know: this is going to be a loud, action-packed explosion-fest, and it’s going to be funny. And whattaya know, that’s pretty much exactly how it turned out.

Venom is a complicated character with complex origins. Hell, just the fact that “he” is actually a “we” could be a bit much for someone to process. Do you really want to bring in the whole ‘well it’s an alien, but it’s also a suit, and it was first attached to Spider-Man during Secret Wars, which is when the Beyonder transported all the Marvel heroes to Battleworld…’ Yeesh, I just gave myself a headache writing that. No. Go too deep early and you risk overloading your potential audience. Establish tone. Make the people who know nothing about the character curious. Better to paint in broad strokes early and bring in the fan service later.

Room for improvement

This isn’t to say the Venom teaser is perfect. Hardy’s voiceover is well-done, but there are a few too many explosions, car crashes, and shots of Hardy sprinting. It sort of blurs together on first viewing, and the mystery of ‘what exactly is going on here’ could be sold a bit harder.

I also think it’s coming in a bit early. Venom won’t be out for another 8 months, and only wrapped shooting a week ago. It’s no wonder there’s hardly so much as a glimpse of the symbiote; the movie is barely into post-production!

The timing is also coming hot on the heels of a new Deadpool trailer (opens in new tab) and just ahead of the Black Panther (opens in new tab) release date. I’d say Venom is caught between a rock and a hard place but it’s more like being caught between one of the most highly-anticipated sequels of the year and a superhero movie that has already broken pre-sales records. And you want people to pay attention to and remember this teaser? Come on, Sony.

And let’s be honest: even if we acknowledge the need for the movie to introduce itself slowly and in a way that makes sense to your gran-gran, deep down you and I still want to see the monster. It’s that intense anticipation of seeing a character we’ve come to love over decades of storytelling on the big screen. It’s the giddy excitement we feel as we think back to how flat-out cool we thought Venom was when we first discovered him. Them. Whatever. That’s just how a gut feeling works, and the most well-reasoned arguments in the world often fail when faced with raw emotion.

I don’t know about you, but for now I’m going to try and take the Venom teaser for what it is: a flawed, if understandably so, product of marketing with a lot of weight on its shoulders. Oh well. Maybe they’ll get it next time.

The post Watch the first Venom teaser appeared first on Game News.

Well it is, but only if Sony tries to take the obvious, traditional route. Because while the idea of making a movie out of a Spider-Man villain without Spider-Man (or many of the major elements of his supporting fictional world) seems entirely bonkers – and is an undeniably challenging prospect, on multiple creative and logistical levels – it actually has a great deal of potential. If Sony embraces the idea that limitations lead to creative solutions, and aims for a distinct, thoughtful treatment rather than delivering a Marvel-lite tagalong, there’s huge scope for solving all of the studio’s current superhero problems at the same time as delivering a very, very worthwhile movie indeed. 

Here’s how it would do that. 

Don’t mention the wider Marvel world. Don’t even be tempted  

Without the rights to use Spider-Man, Sony obviously can’t factor him into the story. But I’m going to get really hardline about how un-Spider-Man this film needs to be. No hints, no allusions, no newspaper headlines referencing red-and-blue blurs hurtling through the New York skyline, and certainly no TV news reports cutting off just before they mention him (seriously, let’s kill that lame trope forever). There needs to be no Spider-presence in this film at all. Not even an acknowledgement that he, or any other part of the MCU, exists. Deal with the wider Marvel universe like Christopher Nolan dealt with the DC universe in the Dark Knight trilogy. ie. Don’t. 

To acknowledge Spider-Man is to acknowledge that he’s not in this film, which is to implicitly acknowledge that the MCU exists, and that this film is not part of it. That both quietly breaks the fourth wall, and makes Sony’s Venom film feel like the poor relation to the ‘official’ Marvel movies. Fox’s Deadpool gets away with this – with its crashed S.H.I.E.L.D. heli-carriers and references to Samuel L. Jackson – but only because it’s Deadpool. Breaking the fourth wall and messing up the narrative are half the point. 

But Sony really can’t afford to do any of that. Its last two Spider-Man movies were largely crap, and directly led to Marvel taking the Spider-Man rights back. Worse, the leaked company e-mail reports (opens in new tab) from a couple of years ago painted a picture of a creatively flailing studio with simply no clue what it was doing in regard to superhero films. Sony needs to convince with Venom. It needs to re-establish itself as a studio with something unique and relevant to offer in the comic book world. It needs to make Venom a weighty and meaningful film in its own, standalone right. It can’t rely on popular associations, obviously, but it can’t afford to allude to any either. It needs to own this, and do something fresh with the material. As for how to do that… 

Ignore everything but Venom, and go deep on what makes him interesting 

So if Sony’s Venom movie has to stand on its own two goopy, tentacled feet, then it needs to take a seriously analytical approach to its design. It needs to work out what it is about Venom’s conceptual core that makes him interesting as a character or entity, outside of his place in the wider Marvel universe. And then it needs to find a way to make that substantial enough to carry a whole movie. There are a few unique challenges here, but a few very interesting opportunities as well. 

Sporadic dabbles with heroism and anti-heroism aside, Venom is questionable movie protagonist material. He’s the product of a malicious, aggressive, alien symbiote bonding with a human host to create a rampaging, mutant berserker. There are good-guy versions of him – taking in such spin-off lifestyles as secret agent work and a stint in the Guardians of the Galaxy – but they’re not the standard-edition Venom that most people are going to come to see. And besides, to spin off into any of those secondary variants is going to require at least one movie spent establishing the rules of vanilla Venom first. You can’t open with them. And with the absence of the wider MCU precluding any obvious heroic foil or influence, you have to accept that you’re working with nothing more than pure, OG, monstrous, scary Venom here. And you need to work with that, not against it. 

Venom doesn’t have a set identity. Although most immediately associated with Eddie Brock, Peter Parker’s bullying Daily Bugle colleague, multiple different hosts have bonded with the symbiote over the years – including the similarly Parker-linked Flash Thompson . Each has had a slightly different relationship with it, thus creating multiple different Venoms with varying goals, abilities, and outlooks. There isn’t really an obvious version to latch on to, and the best-known is too closely related to Spider-Man to realistically build a film around. But the flipside is that Venom’s nature as a hybrid character does present a unique narrative angle. This isn’t a simple ‘get powers, do stuff’ story. There’s a lot of internal conflict and even trauma to play with. 

And the third problem is that Venom is fairly one-note. He is, in effect, a hulking, semi-feral tentacle-gorilla. He’s really strong, has an approximation of Spider-Man’s powers, loads of teeth, and likes wrecking stuff. Venom was created to work as a physically imposing anti-Spider-Man, and that’s basically what he does. We are not looking at Tony Stark levels of long-term character arc here. But again, this restriction presents a solution, doubling down on the encouragement to focus not on Venom himself, but with how each host relates to the symbiote. How well they bond, whether they embrace it or fight it, whether they manage (or even try) to control it for the cause of good – using artificial means or pure willpower – and how the symbiote responds to them in kind. The comic book symbiote has already killed at least one host for being an unworthy coward. There’s a lot of narrative meat here. 

Go this way, and you have a fantastic source of central character tension and a brilliant hook for a unique dynamic, which can be explored while neatly avoiding the problem of the wider Marvel world, too. If you make the Venom movie about the internal relationship between symbiote and host, rather than the external relationship between hybrid Venom and the outside world, then you have a weighty, focused, mature story conceit that doesn’t require the character to bounce off any established Marvel stars. And you have a whole lot of interesting places to take that. So… 

Don’t make a superhero movie. At all  

There are enough of them already. And specifically, there are more than enough of the kind that Venom would likely be. No-one needs another unless it’s going to do something special. We really don’t need a tonally confused Venom movie that shoehorns itself toward anti-hero adventure just because that’s the sort of thing that everyone else is doing. The MCU is full of increasingly morally grey hero vs. villain movies. The DC Extended Universe is all about the grim-dark heroes doing grim-dark things for the greater good. A Venom film that went in a similar direction would instantly melt into background noise and static, and make Sony look like the desperate ‘me too’ studio again. 

However, something that Sony can take from Marvel’s evolution of the MCU is the idea that ‘comic book movie’ is not a genre (opens in new tab) – and there are already unconfirmed hints (opens in new tab) that it might be doing just that. Between the traditional superheroism of the first two Iron Man films, the spy thriller of Winter Soldier, the heist comedy of Ant-Man, the introspective indie-style dramedy of Iron Man 3, and the Technicolor space-opera of Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel has succeeded by understanding that just because characters have superpowers, that doesn’t mean you have to wrap a straightforward superhero story around them. 

With Venom, Sony has an opportunity to take this philosophy even further. With no ties to existing continuity, a unique dynamic where the source of the superpowers is malicious and invasive, and a huge amount of physical and psychological drama to explore through that, there’s no reason Venom should concern itself with good guy / bad guy power struggles at all. In fact… 

You don’t even need to make Venom the main character 

Consider this. Every Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, or Friday the 13th poster has Freddy, Michael, or Jason front and centre. But are those guys ever the lead character? Not at all. Their respective series remain compelling because – Halloween 3 aside – they’re consistently hooked around a clearly defined, powerful antagonist, which is why their monsters remain the defining marketing image. But the reason they’ve each survived a huge number of sequels and reboots is that with their rules, conventions, and horror dynamics are so strongly defined, they’re free to explore them in multiple different directions with new protagonists every time. See also, the original Alien trilogy. No-one ever remembers the hero of a Nightmare or Halloween film – Jamie Lee Curtis and Heather Langenkamp aside – but they do remember the interactions they have with the horror focal point. Successful horror films and thrillers are all about the exploration of that relationship. They are, fittingly, entirely symbiotic. 

Thus, with Venom being such a specific and arresting monster – but not clearly suitable for heroic duties – by following this model there’s much greater potential in casting him in an antagonistic role while still making the film very much about him. There are a lot of interesting themes and ideas to explore with Venom, but with so much of his identity built around the violence, threat, and (literal and figurative) alien chaos he can wreak, his essence could be better explored – and made far more potent – by having the audience root not for the marauding beast (tricky in terms of both empathy and character interest), but for innocent, street level characters having to deal with him. Again, it comes back to accepting the limitations of the character and steering into them. There’s much less value in a watered-down, friendlier Venom than there is in a treatment that really ramps up his raw essence. 

Spawn creator Todd McFarlane has long touted a similar idea for a lower-budget movie reboot of his own character, and it is, frankly, an excellent one. It would work brilliantly with Spawn, but it could be even better with Venom. And if one of those innocents beset by Venom was the actual host of Venom at the same time, then you have some very exciting material to explore. Alien meets Predator, meets Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and David Cronenberg’s The Fly. That is a film I would pay top dollar to see. 

Whatever you do, take it seriously 

I cannot emphasise this enough. All of Venom’s potential quality, all the things that can help Sony deliver a unique, original comic book movie with scope for genuine acclaim, rest on taking the material seriously. And I’m talking in terms of both what happens on screen, and the mindset of the overall production. Getting Venom right needs careful thought and creative bravery, and a willingness to follow through on non-traditional angles. 

There’s more to be had here than another CG stunt movie. There’s more to be had than another Suicide Squad (opens in new tab)-style ‘What if good guys, but bad?’ gimmick. And Sony needs it to be more than that. It needs that if the studio is going to establish itself as a serious player in the comic book movie market. It needs it if it’s going to erase the memory of its recent, opportunistically rushed Spider-disasters. And it really needs it if it’s going to persuade anyone that this new ‘Marvel without Marvel’ initiative is anything other than desperation. 

Much like with the creative challenges of the Venom character himself, Sony really needs to think about how to make the limitation of operating outside the MCU work for it, rather than against it, delivering not a second-best half-measure, but something unique that stands alone and has specific purpose and value, deliberately distinct from what the Avengers-loving public are used to. It needs to think in terms of Logan (opens in new tab) rather than The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (opens in new tab). It needs to get a smart writer, a serious director, take some risks and go to town. If it does all of that, and takes its time about it, then its standalone Venom movie really could be the definition of an idea so crazy, it just might work. 

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