There’s nothing more frustrating than celebrating a bad film’s success. I’m a huge fan of Venom, who was my favorite childhood villain and antihero. Whether you like his solo feature adaptation or not, the film was problematic and executives did, in fact, fuck it up. This massive hit is just a signal to the top execs that they were right in toning down the violence and tweaking it for children. It also tells them that all the decisions they forced down onto the creative were the right thing to do. It’s empowered them to fuck shit up. No matter, Venom is a hit and it’s pretty damn cool. It’s bigger than almost all of the Spider-Man films and that’s mind-blowing (it could pass Sam Raimi’s 2002 film).
Digressing, Venom added another $87M in China and is now sitting at $570M internationally and $210M here in the States for a $780M global take. It’s smashing predictions and just $40M from being the biggest Spider-Man movie ever (prior to inflation).
This is impressive for a critically panned film that cost a whopping $100M to produce. No matter, the studio’s big gamble has paid off as the film is a monstrous hit and has officially launched Sony’s darker cinematic universe that continues with the Jared Leto-starring Morbius. There will also be a Venom sequel that will star Woody Harrelson as Carnage.
In the film, “One of Marvel’s greatest and most complex characters takes center stage as Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) becomes the host for the alien symbiote Venom. As a journalist, Eddie has been trying to take down the notorious founder of the Life Foundation, genius Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed) – and that obsession ruined his career and his relationship with his girlfriend, Anne Weying (Michelle Williams). Upon investigating one of Drake’s experiments, the alien Venom merges with Eddie’s body, and he suddenly has incredible new superpowers, as well as the chance to do just about whatever he wants. Twisted, dark, unpredictable, and fueled by rage, Venom leaves Eddie wrestling to control dangerous abilities that he also finds empowering and intoxicating. As Eddie and Venom need each other to get what they’re looking for, they become more and more intertwined – where does Eddie end and Venom begin?”
