Even though Tom Hardy’s blockbuster didn’t hit theaters until October 2018, attempts to turn Venom into the star of his own movie began as far back as 1997, when David S. Goyer wrote a script that was set up at New Line Cinema with Dolph Lundgren in talks to star as Eddie Brock.
The symbiote may have dodged a bullet there given how Lundgren’s last stab at a Marvel Comics antihero was swept under the rug when The Punisher bombed in 1989, but across town another character with close ties to Todd McFarlane was making their feature film debut.
Michael Jai White’s Spawn may not have fared well with critics or made all that much money at the box office, but it’s nonetheless endured as a cult classic ever since. McFarlane is still set to direct a reboot that’s been in the works for a while now, and he revealed in an exclusive interview with We Got This Covered that he even pitched the chairman of Sony with the idea of a crossover.
“I was bugging the head of Sony a while back, Tom Rathman. I go, “Come on, man.” I go, “You got Venom.” I go, “I hope that we bring Spawn there.” We make Spawn a success, and then all we gotta do is do one press conference, where we even just tease it; the two of them are going to come together, and we never have to do it, but the internet is wide open for 10 years, we get lots of value out of it. Come on, man! Sony’s the spot for Spawn. But anyway, we’ll see. I don’t know if it sunk in or not.”
You’ve got to admire McFarlane’s enthusiasm, and it’s definitely something fans of both would love to see happen in a hard R-rated setting, but it looks as though Sony will be keeping Venom PG-13 for the foreseeable future and having him interact with over Marvel characters only.