Venom (Ruben Fleischer, October 5, 2018) Movie • Page 16

The latest Venom trailer did make me think of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. Though, to be honest, I do like parts of that movie, lol. It's not good, but my enjoyment isn't really ironic. Its most bonkers moments are a genuine blast.

I've been hoping this would land in either Logan or Punisher: War Zone tonal territory. But, I'm also ready to enjoy the heck out of a Venom movie that slips too far into garish absurdity, if that's what happens. That's not a far cry from the Venom of my youth.

 

SPIDER-MAN 3 Star Topher Grace Gives His Seal Of Approval To VENOM: "Tom Hardy Is The Guy To Play That Role"

 

That's a bad sentence.

 

Very gracious of Topher Grace to pass the torch to Tom Hardy after a decade of being the definitive Venom.

 

Topher Grace seems like a good dude, I don't think I blame him for bad Spider Man 3 was

 

I liked Topher’s Venom for what it was. An evil Spider-Man.

 

Topher's Eddie Brock was awful. Elements of the Venom design worked, but overall, that was so bad.

Though, Tobey's Peter Parker was also awful in that series, so I guess they at least go together?

 

While Hardy's Venom will visually be more faithful to the comic. Topher's Venom will be the only screen version so far that has any connection to Peter and form out of hatred towards him. They both have their pros imo.

 

The trailers for Venom already show a better characterization of the comic book character than all the Venom scenes in Spider-Man 3.

It's more than aesthetic. By the time Venom started headlining his own various miniseries in the 90s, his motivations were already totally separate from any relationship with Spider-Man. He still had a certain dynamic with Spidey, but that was just window dressing, not the actual core of the character.

I find it so puzzling and disappointing that people care more about Spider-Man being in Venom than they do about Uncle Ben being in Spider-Man. Really demonstrates how much the average fan of this stuff cares more about aesthetic and plot than they do about character and theme.

 

Maybe it's because Uncle Ben has already been done twice in two different film series for spider-man, where as Venom has only been done once and it was for 25 minutes. Fans of Spider-Man can have different tastes in character and theme and how they're presented on screen. Everyone knows the uncle ben story when it comes to films, you can't say the same about the venom symbiote, that is until the venom film is released but then it would naive to say some casual film goers may not even know that character originally got all of his powers from spider-man in the source material.

 

I find it funny when people talk about having already seen two Uncle Bens when we've also seen a handful of red and blue costumes with a spider logo. Where are the people saying, "We've seen that enough! We don't need another Spider-costume!" Heck, we'd had as many Peters as we'd had Bens when the Marvel deal was announced, and yet some of the same people glad there was no Uncle Ben still opposed the suggestion that we try Miles instead. (And, Homecoming ended up treating Peter more like Miles than Peter in a lot of ways anyways, lol.)

And, when I harp on the Uncle Ben thing, I never suggest they actually show the whole origin a third time. But, you can't erase that motivation, replace it with an audience insert Iron Man fanboy, and end up with the same character. It would've been so easy to insert a few references to his uncle's death throughout the film (Peter's vague comment to Ned about May going through a lot, and Peter & May getting ready for homecoming come to mind), and then include a flashback to Peter and Ben hanging out during the rubble scene. Fits into the structure they went with, gives Peter his "great responsibility" back, and makes for a better Liz/Vulture parallel than Tony does.

The Venom thing is different because all the best Venom stories over the past 30 years largely gloss over the Spidey origins and focus on other motivations for Eddie (or sometimes Flash). His 90s solo material focused on the "lethal protector" angle and the relationship between Eddie & symbiote. Even before David Michelinie spun him out of ASM, he made an effort to make Eddie's true motivation his relationship with his father, not his relationship with Peter. Remender's Agent Venom material, Mike Costa's better issues of Venom (like #150), and the fantastic run right now by Donny Cates likewise define Venom apart from Spidey.

The reason Peter stories historically care about Ben more than Eddie stories care about Spidey is that the former is a fundamental motivation and central theme, while the latter is a gimmick with a very shallow pool of opportunity. It's about *character*.

I love aesthetic as much as the next fan (I strongly advocate for Mysterio's fish bowl and Superman's trunks, and I'll enjoy this movie even if it's bad for that reason). But, if we want our entertainment to have decent storytelling, we shouldn't start with costumes, powers, or plot points. We should start with the fundamental elements of the characters. THEN, we can work in iconic visuals and moments that compliment the character- or thematically-driven story the movie's going with.

 

I swear whenever I see someone talking about different incarnations or Spider-Man I start singing, “And I will crush that Spider-Man! And then that other Spider-Man! And ALL the Spider-Men!! Til I’MMM the Spider-Maaaaannn!!”

 

Apparently Sony is pushing hard for PG-13. So, put me down for $100 on "implied" limb eating.

 

VENOM for the kids!

 

Part of me knows that the corners of the internet I frequent aren't representative of movie-goers as a whole, but another part of me has been pessimistic recently about Venom's box office performance based on a lot of the responses I see. If the film ends up doing really well, I'll be really happy, if for no other reason than my hunger for more of those projects Sony has in development.

 

It'll probably be like Suicide Squad where seemingly everybody hates it but it's somehow incredible successful.

 

Yeah, that's a good comparison. If enough of that crowd turns out, it'll help a lot.

 

It’s Venom. I don’t see how it can’t have at least a decent opening weekend, even if the movie flat out sucks.

 

Its not hard to break records in a month where no one wants to release movies.

 

Is there any reason why October is not a good month for movies?

 

It’s after the rush of summer. Not quite Oscar season. Sept-Oct tends to be fairly dead at the box office.

 

I hadn't really thought about it but I do always find it annoying that all the films I want to see come out within a few weeks of each other and then other times during the rest of the year there's nothing that catches my attention.