With the news that Tom Hardy has been cast as Venom in the character’s spinoff film, we’re wondering whether this will be the kick-starter Sony’s Spider-Man franchises need.
Ton Hardy being cast as anything is great news, but when Sony Pictures announced, via Variety, that he’ll be playing Eddie Brock, a.k.a Venom, in the popular anti-heroes first solo film, I literally did a little whoop of joy. Venom has been portrayed before on the big screen by Topher Grace in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, but it left fans of the character feeling more than a little bit cold.
I’m a big fan of Topher Grace, ever since I fist saw him in That 70s Show, but he lacked the grit and pathos that the original comic book character needed. He also felt a little bit thrown into the mix, which happened to be the case since it was the studios decision to put him in the movie, not Raimi’s.
Tom Hardy is Eddie Brock in #Venom, the upcoming film from Sony’s Marvel Universe releasing October 5, 2018 – production starts this fall. pic.twitter.com/OZQqDEvoum
— Sony Pictures (@SonyPictures) May 19, 2017
There’s no doubt that Venom deserves his own cinematic vehicle. He’s a really interesting and unique anti-hero. Sometime’s he’s good, other times he’s really bad, but he’s always captivating, whatever it is he’s up to.
Tom Hardy is the perfect embodiment of both Venom and Brock. Brock was never meant to be a scrawny dude, he was actually pretty buff, and well, all you need to do is to look at some artwork of Venom to know how big that monstrous looking thing is.
So, Hardy has the physicality of the role down to a T, yet he also has the acting chops to back it up. Hardy is arguably one of the most talented actors working in Hollywood today. His incredibly diverse back-catalogue of performances pays testament to that fact.
Venom taking on Spider-Man…
Mad Max: Fury Road, Legend, Warrior, The Revenant, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises… He hasn’t delivered a bad performance yet. He also tends to pick every role very carefully, and even though there’s no script for the Venom movie yet, Sony Pictures must have delivered a very good pitched to get him to take the leading role.
Incidentally, Venom’s script will be penned by Scott Rosenberg (Jumanji) and Jeff Pinkner (The Dark Tower), and the movie will be directed by Zombieland’s Ruben Fleischer, which is yet another sign that Sony Pictures really mean business with this new Spidey spinoff franchise.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 had left the comic book franchise in tatters, yet when Marvel and Sony managed to finalise a deal which meant that we were going to see yet another reboot of the Spidey franchise, this time with Tom Holland playing everybody’s favourite wall-crawler, there was new hope.
Topher Grace as Venom in Spider-Man 3
Sony had originally intended to make a series of spinoff movies starring Spider-Man’s most notorious foes, the Sinister Six, and there was even talk of a Venom movie back then. However, things went a bit pear-shaped after the negative reaction to The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and those spinoff movie plans were all but dead.
However, Tom Hardy’s casting as Venom has breathed new life into Sony’s Spidey spinoff franchises. All we need now is for Venom to be a cracking film, and then we might very well end up seeing further films like this in the future. Hopefully Sony’s time working alongside Marvel Studios has taught them the does and don’t behind making a good comic book film. Fingers crossed it’ll all work out because we do want to see these characters done justice on the silver screen.
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