As if we didn’t need any more reasons to believe that Tom Hardy is fully invested in the character of Eddie Brock and hugely responsible for his sweaty, nervous and neurotic portrayal, it’s been confirmed that the actor will receive the first writing credit of his career on Venom: Let There Be Carnage after cracking the story with screenwriter Kelly Marcel.
Hardy and Marcel have been close friends and regular collaborators for two decades, having met when they were complete unknowns, before she scored her first film credit by performing rewrites on the star’s breakthrough vehicle Bronson. In fact, they’re so close that he’s got a tattoo in her honor. Both now have producer status on Let There Be Carnage as well as knocking their heads together to formulate the plot, and in a new interview Marcel revealed the process, and just how extensively involved the leading man was when it came to cracking the narrative.
“This is new for him, to get credit, but it’s not new for him to be this involved. He’s absolutely 100% committed to everything that he does. He’s married to Venom. He loves this character. He’s very involved in what he thinks should happen. He doesn’t get a pen and write. We spent months breaking the story together on FaceTime, riffing on ideas, seeing what worked, seeing what didn’t. Then I took everything we spoke about and holed up somewhere for three months quietly, knocking out a script.”
Big name actors taking story credits on their own effects-driven blockbusters can go both ways. On one hand, you’ve got the significant contributions Paul Rudd made to each of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Ant-Man movies, but on the other side of the coin there’s Will Smith and After Earth, which he refitted as a futuristic sci-fi with his son that tanked at the box office.
As one of the finest talents of his generation, it would be safe to assume that Tom Hardy has the best interests of Venom: Let There Be Carnage at heart rather than his own, and based on the first footage it looks as though the sequel is set to double down on the weirdness and bizarre double act between Eddie and his symbiotic alter ego.