Tom Hardy’s Venom Slithers Onto The Cover Of Total Film

We are, at the time of writing, little over six weeks out from the theatrical release of Venom, Sony and Ruben Fleischer’s standalone comic book film that looks set to take Spider-Man out of the equation and place the focus squarely on his sworn enemy.

That’s the approach to Sony’s entire Marvel Universe, which will soon feature numerous spinoffs about some of Peter Parker’s greatest foes – think Silk, Nightwatch, Morbius, Jackpot and Kraven the Hunter. Of course, that’s assuming everything goes according to plan, as without a solid box office performance from Venom, the SUMC (yes, that is the official title) will be dead on arrival.

But in the interest of remaining positive, today we draw your attention not to Spider-Man or Peter Parker, but to one of his greatest enemies – Eddie Brock/Venom. Both characters will be brought to life by Tom Hardy, and the latest issue of Total Film (h/t CBM) does a pretty stand-up job of highlighting the duality of Marvel’s alien menace.

It’s admittedly a cool and sinister close-up of Tom Hardy’s second comic book mega-villain – Bane being the first – but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before.

And while it’s fair to say that Sony is banking on Venom to be a success, the lull in Hollywood comic book movies ought to work in the film’s favor. Not only has Marvel Studios ignored the November corridor for the first time in three years, but Fox’s cosmic epic X-Men: Dark Phoenix was recently delayed out of 2017, allowing Venom a clear shot at box office glory. Or so we hope…

All will be revealed when Venom lights the fuse on Sony’s Spider-Man-less Spider-Man universe on October 5th.