Is This Our First Look At The CGI Design For Tom Hardy’s Venom?

If one thing’s to be said about Spider-Man, it’s that not only does he have one of the richest rogues galleries Marvel has to offer, but in all of comics as well. Of course, there are those whom True Believers tend to favor over others, but none of us can deny the cult following that Venom has amassed over the years.

Bonded to an alien symbiote that helps in giving him such a badass look, this character has sometimes found himself portrayed as an anti-hero, a practice not uncommon whenever someone normally thought of as being “a bad guy” is the protagonist in a given narrative. Thus, we expect that to hold true with the feature film. But the one question on every fan’s mind is what will the titular character look like on the big screen?

Unfortunately, Sony isn’t ready to reveal that just yet, but we do know that he’ll be rendered using CGI and today, we might have gotten our first glimpse at how Venom may appear when he swings into theaters next year. That’s because seen in the gallery below are a few images of a sculpture that were recently shared by artist Mikkel Frandsen.

Though he didn’t say what the sculpture was for, we do know that he’s got an unannounced project coming in 2018 and from the looks of it, it would seem to be Sony’s spinoff that he’s working on. Especially since he mentioned Marvel on the Instagram posts where these pics hail from.

Pretty neat, eh? Story-wise, we know that the Eddie Brock solo movie has a script from Scott Rosenberg and Jeff Pinkner, who recently dabbled with rip-roaring adventure thanks to their contribution to the Dwayne Johnson-led yarn, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. Not only that, but over the past few days, both Hardy and Fleischer have been dropping story clues, after the latter revealed another comic inspiration for Venom‘s narrative arc: Planet of the Symbiotes. First published in ’95, its story will seemingly be fused with that of Lethal Protector, which has also been name-dropped as a catalyst for the big-screen adaptation.

And while those two arcs will have a huge bearing on Venom overall, there have also been murmurings that Fleischer and his team have looked to the likes of David Cronenberg and John Carpenter, two giants of cinema, for inspiration when it comes to the film’s body-horror elements. Stay tuned for more on that front.

Angled to be ground zero of Sony’s Spider-Man universe, one that exists as an adjunct to the massively popular MCU, Venom is due to get the ball rolling on October 5th, 2018. Riz Ahmed, Jenny Slate and Manchester By the Sea actress Michelle Williams also star, with the latter seemingly poised to take point as Anne Weying (She-Venom?). Looking further afield, Sony is said to be plotting a separate spinoff based on cult favorite Morbius, the Living Vampire, as well.