As part of the Spider-Man 4/5 story that just broke, Deadline Hollywood also reported that Sony is moving forward with a movie about Venom, one of the villains in Spider-Man 3. Without giving specifics, the word is that a pair of screenwriters have been hired to start work on the script.
The interesting thing is that Todd MacFarlane, one of the creators of the character, doesn’t think Venom can work very well as the “hero” of a movie.
|
|
In early August Todd MacFarlane spoke to Newsarama.com about the possibility of a Venom spin-off movie. He realizes that the character can’t be too scary due to the PG/PG-13 target for superhero movies, but that even within those parameters he should be made creepier than he was in Spider-Man 3:
“I think you could add a little bit of a creep factor. I mean, it never bugged me to watch Frankenstein as a kid, so you could have a little bit of it, as long as you have a good story backing it up.”
One interesting item that surfaced was the fact that he didn’t design the character to be human in any way. He designed Venom to be a monster/creature, not a suit worn by a person.
MacFarlane said that the reason some villains are so cool is because they’re so “bad” and trying to make them an “anti-hero” ruins the essence of the character:
“The reason they’re so cool as a bad guy is because they’re bad. And as soon as you try to give too much humanity to them, then you go, no! Now they’re not as good as a bad guy because you’re trying to redeem them.”
I’ve questioned in the past how the heck you take a character like Venom and make him the star of his own movie. As MacFarlane says, to work in a movie setting, by the end of the film there has to be some level of goodness in Venom, and that detracts from who he is.
How do you think Venom could work as the star of his own film?
Source: Newsarama and Deadline Hollywood Daily
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Learn more about Screen Rant or if you want more frequent updates follow us on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!
27 Comments
I think Venom can totally carry his own movie as long as Carnage is the main antagonist.. Carnage being the Spawn of the symbiote wants to destroy it’s creator and unleashes a path of destuction in his wake with the bodies piling up… Venom has no choice but to assume the mantle of hero and not because of some cheesy redemption story but because he is fighting for his survival…Not a hero angle at all but a survival of the fittest scenario…Venom can kill and maim to win he battle as well with civilians as the victims of their war…
This movie will definitely not have a Carebears feel to it….Dark & creepy with Cletus being a serial killer with access to a symbiote…Yeesh!! I’d cheer for Venom but only because he is the lesser of two evils..
they can go as creepy as they want,Look at the hellboy movies. im the first one they had a s0-called DEVIL,a man with no Eyes numerous tentacled creachers and a gateway to “Hell” and parisites.
so if they really wanted to please fans they would.
I dunno…this can only sell with an A-list actor in it, otherwise we have a mediocre film…I have no faith in this idea at this point in time with how Sony handled Spidey 3.
And again, if these movies were about stopping Venom and making him/it truly bad it would be different, but it doesn’t sound like that’s the path they’re taking…so what is it supposed to be then, another Punisher…just uglier?
what the heck story could span 3 movies with him in it as the title character? If it were true, it would definately have to have some kinda tie-in/cameos back and forth with spidey 4/5.
greenknight333 said,: “I’d cheer for Venom but only because he is the lesser of two evils..”
Didn’t “Chronicles of Riddick” go there?? I liked “C.O.R.” so it’s not a problem for me, but what about as a general success?? Can Chronicles problems be avoided and make the film more successful?
the title of this post cracked me up, when I first read it I immediately thought God has a problem with the Venom movie.
I think it would be a interesting movie if done right. Venom can be bad without mindlessly slaughtering people, and Carnage can do that. bad guy vs badder guy.
LMAO! Yeah, I struggled with the title. The alternatives were all too long, so I ended up with this one.
Vic
Maybe Venom can be the baddie in Ghostbusters III?
Todd MacFarlane DID NOT create venom all he did was literally add the teeth! and he has been trying to take the credit ever since! Venom was created by David Micheline, Tom Defalco, Ron Frenz, and Todd MacFarlane (drew him when he was created and added the teeth!).
Venom would do great in his own film if they took it seriously! Topher should not have played venom, as venom lifted weights as a stress reliever before he became venom, and was a fairly large guy to begin with! but I didn’t hate him playing the part as much as I should, and thought I would.
If they do carnage, they should do Matthew Lillard as Cletus Kasady! even though he is getting old, I don’t think anyone could pull it off half as well as he could!
And as for the people who don’t think Venom or Carnage could be accurately depicted in the film unless its R, how many people in the first three films were hit with heavy objects that would and DID kill them?! not to mention how many doctors and nurses did Doc Ock kill in spider-man 2?! besides it’s not like it will be none stop! I’m sure that the massacre will keep getting interrupted by someone or something like they always do in the movies and it will probably be a cop stalling by getting killed himself instead of a lot of innocents, long enough for venom to get there and start battling it out between themselves, ending the massacre. And as long as they accurately depict their funny and messed up personality’s, and have a good actual battle for their finale unlike ghost rider or that terrible so called hulk movie of Ang Lee’s, I don’t think many people would mind if it doesn’t have a lot of blood so it can have a PG rating! it would be cool if it was R, but it isn’t necessary!
VENOM CARRIES MOVIE… AND
AFTER BREAK
MacFarlane SAY’S not..
too confusing??
What if Venom is controlled by someone to fight Carnage that could work.
I can t stand Venom!
OK, that was a test.
I have been having trouble since last night.
But truthfully, I am not a huge Venom fan .
He ruined the last Spider-Man film.
Why does everyone feel Venom either has to be the bad guy or that he has to be redeemed somehow to be the good guy?
There is another way to go: Venom always thought of himself as the good guy. He tries to protect the victims, as he perceives himself to be, and kills those he believes are the victimizers. In his mind Spider-Man was the bad guy because he unjustly attacked Brock and the symbiote.
Given what he has been shown to do in order to get a chance at Spider-Man, there’s no reason he can’t be portrayed as the cure that’s as bad as, or worse than, the disease. He’ll do what he feels he has to do to stop the bad guys, and if that means he kills innocents, then so be it. As far as he’s concerned, those deaths are not his responsibility, but were caused by the people he’s after.
If he’s handled that way, there’s no reason Venom can’t work, and possibly carry his own movie, regardless of who the enemy is.
A Flamestrike
Venom kills innocents if they keep him from accomplishing his goals..He feels bad about it but he still does it,,,So he is a sociopath…bad bad Venom…
This sounds like a bad idea… Hollywood.
I agree with MacFarlane on this one,,,,
GreenKnight333, they can only do your version if they include Venom and Carnage in Spider Man 5. If not it dosnt fit,,,
I believe the whole concept and look of Venom was all Michelinie. Eric Larsen added the tongue (McFarlane hated the tongue).
heath
The only problem is always going to be the fact that the studio is going to make it a spider-man movie not a venom movie.
Oh, the sweet irony of Sony creating a movie (are you sure that it’s going to be one, it’s got to be at LEAST 2 if it’s Sony and a comic book movie) from a character they didn’t even bother naming in Spider-Man 3.
I am both a huge Spider-Man, and an old-school McFarlane fan, but folks - the requirement of having an A-class actor is completely against the original concept of Venom. The reason it failed terribly in S3 is because they had to bleed off Venom’s head to showcase Topher Grace’s face. The same phenomenon happens with Toby Maguire as well when at the end of each and every Spider-Man movie, his mask is almost completely disintergrated.
I’m totally interested, I’m wide-open in reagard to “welcoming a Venom” movie, but without that classic initiator series of McFarlane goodness - meh.
As long as Carnage is the villain it will work.
I agree with Todd’s statement. One of the reasons I now hate Magneto is because he now has some “Good” in him.
Magneto has always had good in him, he just hates humans. He believes in Mutant Superiority, hes not evil, was Malcom X evil, magnetos has just become a softy for human kind. and why don’t they make spider-man the villain, do what they did with the Secret Window,make the sherrif the one everyone hates at the end, Eddie thinks he is doing good and venom is just giving him a little boost.
This would have to be an anti-hero flick for sure. Venom is a supervillian, a story device must force him to battle another evil, while Venom fancies himself a ‘lethal protector’ he, or ‘they’ are misunderstood by Spider-Man and by the public and he is definitely driven insane between his hatred for Spidey and the power of the symbiote.
Really, there is a Spawn factor to him — *Opens box of comics* — Like Spawn, he will take it upon himself to be judge, jury and executioner. That is what seperates him from the superheros like Spidey and Batman. And like Spawn he eventually takes refuge with other ’societal outcasts’ and protects them.
PROS
‘Venom’ is a chance to save the slandered character.
CONS
He will probably be slandered more.
Like the War Machine spin-off, i think the sole driving force behind this idea is profit not the desire to make an amazing film and that is bad for everyone except the studio execs.
MY IDEA:
Tie in Spidey 4 & 5 with Venom, give us the Lizard and adapt the Maximum Carnage storyline to film.
Too bad Sony has exclusive right to Spidey, there are plenty of stories that would allow tie-ins with the X-Men or Avengers.
After 2011, if Marvel fares well and the Avengers is a critically acclaimed mammoth blockbuster, I would love to see Secret Wars or Civil War put on the Silver Screen…
Imagine it… done right…
P.S. Todd only created his teeth? That’s the best part!
Good points, High Kalibur,,,,
I think they will probably do the movie like the Venom comic mini-series did and have him captured by the government, and have a bomb placed in his neck to control him.
They (probably S.H.I.E.L.D.) will capture Venom (possibly right after the battle in spider-man 3, crawling off wounded in the sewer or something like that), and try to study him, and the symbiote will spawn somehow unnoticed, and find Cletus Kasady(hopefully Matthew Lillard), probably in a cell near Venom for whatever reason they pull out of their butts. Kasady will become Carnage, and after getting their butts kicked, and most if not all the squad sent after Carnage are slaughtered, the military will place the bomb in Venom’s neck and send him after Carnage.
P.S. however cool venoms teeth are, Venom is a cool all-around character, he makes just as good a hero as a villain, nobody can deny that unless they haven’t read a Venom comic in which case they don’t know what they are talking about! and adding the teeth to the character was a great idea! but it doesn’t give Todd MacFarlane the right to try to take the credit from the group of people who created him!
I defintely think the best route to go is Venom vs. Carnage and even better then that, I like the Maximum Carnage dynamic of Spidey and Venom having to put aside their differences to team up and defeat Carnage.
If they based it off Maximum, they could even bring in the Black Cat as a supporting character and that would be awesome too. Fans definitely want it…
@ Yama454
P.S.
Venom was created by a myriad of Artists and Writers, the character was the result of ideas being thrown around and combined together — in fact, Venom was almost a female.
The subject is actually considered a controversy by the comic book community.
In general it is agreed that Micheline was the final creating writer, though the ideas were not completely original, such as the suit being a sentient being and it being an alien.
It is also generally agreed by even Micheline himself, that McFarlene deserves the creator credit because of the ‘monsterous’ appearence he gave Venom, without it, it is very possible that the character would not have been as popular. It is important to note that McFarlene’s work on Venom was also based of others’ previous work.
But Todd made him scary! The Teeth! : )
All in all, ‘Venom’ is the result of plenty of Artist collaboration. I think it might be considered taxing to list twelve artists/writers whenever giving credit to Venom’s creation.
Venom is a great character definitely one of the best Villians ever, especially for Spidey. I don’t agree that he can ever be a superhero he has been an anti-hero.
And I don’t know if you need to be a comic fan to discern the difference between superhero, anti-hero and villian but they are all different types of characters.
Somebody said something about “Villains having humanity ruins them” — wait was that differnt thread — anyway, I disagree.
Magneto is my favorite villian, I would say the Joker but I’d be talking film not comics — in the comics Magneto is not evil, he is driven and has an actual hatred for humans based on experiences. I could read Magneto and say “Wow, he has a point… logically speaking.”
Pure evil is not logical and making someone pure evil is extrememly easy from a writers stand point — you don’t have to put any effort into their motives — i.e. Carnage.
AUDIENCE
“Why did he do that?”
STORY
“Well, he’s evil.”
AUDIENCE
“O.K.”
How many people have you met that are PURE EVIL?
Humanity adds depth to a character: hero or villian and Venom will definitely need that depth if he is to be a protagonist in his own feature film.
Man, Sony better get to work and tackle this film carefully, it can very easily be horrible.
Just like everyone here has their own views of Venom — I can only imagine what kinds of meetings the writers, executives, producers and potential director may be having about the film. I hope there are some fans in there somewhere.
Actually living in modoc I’ve met plenty of PURE EVIL! its pretty much child molester central, all the sick and depraved people seem to migrate here! Anyone who has kids here should be arrested for child endangerment!
Anyway I agree that Maximum Carnage would be the best and by far the most popular route! but I’m not sure they will, just because everybody seems to hate spider-man 3, and oddly enough it isn’t for the dancing or Mary Jane but Venom (which could have been a lot better, but it could also have been a lot worse!) and the multiple villains. They will probably want a quick and easy way to make Venom fight for the good guys, and Maximum Carnage would definitely not be quick, and would have to add to many villains and superheroes into the mix if they did it right(which they probably wouldn’t)! which is why I think they will probably do the “License to Kill” thing! And if they do S.H.I.E.L.D. as Venom’s captors hopefully they don’t do Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, if they even use Nick Fury? its not the ultimates (which suck)!
P.S. Todd MacFarlane does deserve some credit! But I don’t agree his name of all the names should be the main name listed as the creator, in my opinion he did not do enough to deserve it! especially since he is so full of himself he wasn’t satisfied with the credit he was due, he wanted to steal all the credit! just for that his name shouldn’t even be on the list! he should have been grateful to be a part of his creation and just accepted his due credit!
I should have said anti-hero, he’s still cool as both! although hero and anti-hero however big a difference are both still heroes to me, probably anti-hero more though, I personally prefer the permanent solution over the catch and release!
…say word…
The problem isn’t that Venom the concept can’t carry a movie… The problem is that Venom (movie character) has been such a piss poor representation of Venom that there isn’t a legitimate shot for him anymore until the public forgets about the atrocities done o the character in Spider-Man 3.
Now we play the waiting game…
And incidentally, Flamestrike is on exactly the right path. But it’ll take time before people forget.
What's your opinion? Leave a comment!
Go to Gravatar.com and upload your own (we'll wait)!