When Sony and Marvel brokered a deal to allow Spider-Man to enter the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the floodgates opened.
On one side of the fence, Marvel Studios quickly locked down Tom Holland for a standalone trilogy revolving around the Web-Head, and that’s a contract that includes a handful of appearances in the MCU’s big-name crossovers (see: Civil War and next year’s Avengers: Infinity War). For Sony, the Powers That Be made the headlines through the casting of Tom Hardy, star of Mad Max and Peaky Blinders, as Eddie Brock, one of the unfortunate (fortunate?) sods who winds up wrangling the Venom symbiote under control.
Toss in a director in Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) along with the possibility of an R-rating and it’s small wonder why Venom has generated so much attention across the industry. As we reported last week, Fifty Shades scribe Kelly Marcel has climbed on board to iron out a script, which ought to ensure Sony and Fleischer’s spinoff is bang on course for that October 2018 release date. And so, with the project beginning to coalesce, creator Todd McFarlane has offered his verdict on Sony’s plans, along with that R-rating.
Chatting to ScreenGeek at NYCC, here’s what Todd McFarlane had to say:
It’ll be interesting. I’ve seen some movies of his where he can bring anger and a wide personality to it. To me, I think Tom Hardy’s going to be as good as whatever Venom looks like. We all know Tom’s going to act. He’s going to do a good job. So now what’s Venom gonna’ look like? It’s an R-rated movie, how ‘R’ are they going to go? To me, that’s the question. Are they going to go a ‘little bit R’? Venom’s a monster to me, and to me – are they going to make him a monster or are they going to make him a man? Are they going to humanize him? That’s what we gotta’ find out.
Directed by Ruben Fleischer, Venom is expected to launch Sony’s own Marvel universe on October 5th, 2018. Other projects in the mix include Silver & Black, which is coming by way of Gina Prince-Bythewood, not to mention spinoff movies featuring Kraven and Mysterio.
