As a result of Spider-Man now being back at home with Marvel Studios and the symbiote’s spinoff coming from Sony alone, Venom‘s had to make some big changes to its titular anti-hero in order for him to stand apart from the wall-crawler in his own movie. Perhaps the most obvious is that the symbiote’s now missing the distinctive white spider emblem that’s always been such a core part of the character’s design.
CinemaBlend caught up with director Ruben Fleischer recently and spoke to him about the visual change. The filmmaker explained that it came about as a necessity of the new origin that Venom tells for Eddie Brock and his parasite and he’s pleased with how fans have accepted this alteration so far.
“We had the reality that we couldn’t feature Spider-Man [in this movie], so we had to get creative on how to manage that. And I think we were actually really successful, and fans have been appreciative of the respect that we showed the comics. Whether it’s changing the spider on his chest, which just, at first, people were like, ‘That’s sacrilege! How can you have Venom without a spider on his chest?’
But then, when you understand the origin is different, than it just wouldn’t make sense to have a spider on his chest. Fans, as soon as they saw those first trailers, they kind of embraced this version. And I’ve been so psyched to see tons of fan art where they’re drawing Venom without a spider on his chest. And that seems to me an indication that they liked this version. They liked the way he looks.”
As Marvel fans will know, the Venom symbiote typically initially bonds with Peter Parker until he rejects it, after which it unites with the Parker-hating Brock and forms the villain we know and love. For Venom, Eddie Brock will become infected with the alien life-form himself when investigating the sinister machinations of the Life Foundation. So, in a universe that has nothing to do with Spider-Man, of course Venom would not sport the spider insignia.
Fleischer’s keen to point out in his response that Spidey’s off-limits to the Venom movie franchise, but that hasn’t stopped everyone from constantly talking about a potential crossover. Toms Holland and Hardy, for one, have both said they’d like to battle each other on-screen. Meanwhile, fans have come up with a way for Andrew Garfield’s Sony-owned web-slinger to appear, too.
The director’s right, though, in saying that we should just accept Venom on its own terms and not for its lack of ties to the wider Spider-world.
