After several months of anticipation, Sony's first Venomhttps://www.cbr.com/tag/venom-movie/ trailer was finally released last week. The footage revealed showed a lot of Tom Hardy dashing through forest and city streets, fleeing from unknown forces, but it included barely a glimpse of the titular alien symbiote. There are a few possible reasons for this, creative ones among them, but the most likely is that work on the film's special effects are not ready to share with the public.
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Of course, it may also be an indication of director Ruben Fleischer's intentions for this adaptation of the character. That is to say, the film, much like the trailer, may be intentionally conservative in its use of Venom. It would be a considerable risk for a superhero-based film to avoid featuring its titular character in a big way, but it's one that could pay off, especially when we take the nature of the character into consideration.
Eddie Brock's popularity arguably reached its peak during the 1990's with "Maximum Carnage" and his "Lethal Protector series." While both of those storylines heavily featured epic, symbiote action, their primary focus was on the character within the symbiote suit and his internal struggle with the monster.
Eddie Brock was more or less introduced as Venom, and his backstory explained in Amazing Spider-Man #300 (written by David Michelinie, artwork by Todd MacFarlane, Bob McLeod and Bob Sharen). The issue revealed that (at first, at least) he wasn't actually a bad guy; in fact, he wanted to do good as a journalist, but one mistake uncovered by Spider-Man's intervention ruined him completely. Unable to rebuild his career in the world of news and serious journalism, Eddie sought a permanent end. Having been raised Catholic, he went from church to church to ask for forgiveness, which is how he happened to be at the church where the symbiote had been rejected and where his life took a darker turn.
Although Eddie bonded with the symbiote, they were never seen as a single entity. Venom -- as Eddie Brock -- has always been written as two minds in a single being, which is why they end up conflicting with each other quite a lot. The symbiote is almost wholly driven by hunger while Eddie generally is driven by a desire to protect the innocent. That internal conflict is best shown in Venom: The Hunger in which Eddie struggles with satisfying the violent urges and needs of the symbiote.
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Eddie's origin as well, as well as the stories that place focus on his struggle with the symbiote, are among the most interesting and emotionally impacting, especially when compared to the stories that treat Venom like a simple monster. During Gargan's run as the symbiote host, Venom was depicted as a bloodthirsty monster, willingly devouring enemies and tearing people apart. It was fun and exciting in its own way, but nowhere near as interested as the discordant Eddie Brock.
In the context of film, a brutal Venom that lunges into every scene would be undoubtedly thrilling, but it would also keep the film from achieving anything significant with the character. We have a lot of superhero and monster films that heavily feature loud, heart-pounding action sequences, but they often fail to provoke thought or remain memorable.
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Judging from the trailer, the film will likely depict Venom as a movie monster and not just another superhero, in which case, featuring the character sparingly would definitely prove to be more effective and we need only look at monster movies of the past to show you why.
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In 1998, the first Hollywood-produced Godzilla film was released, directed by Roland Emmerich. The titular monster was heavily showcased in all its destructive, mutant glory. Seeing Godzilla stomp through the city and wreak havoc was great fun, but was done at the expense of any kind of emotional connection to the film's human characters. The monster entices people, but it isn't enough to carry the film.
Compare that to the Godzilla film that followed in 2014, directed by Gareth Edwards. This time around, the titular monster was only on screen for a total of eight minutes of the two-hour long film. Focus on the human element is part of Edward's overall style, and it did wonders for the movie. Each scene either allowed the audience to develop some form of emotional connection or it built up anticipation for the monster that would inevitably show up, leading to some pretty spectacular scenes.
That conservative approach isn't exclusive to Godzilla, either -- it's the approach Todd McFarlane reportedly intends to take with the planned Spawn film reboot. The comic book creator stated that he intends to focus on the human characters and not the supernatural. Keep in mind that McFarlane also played a large part in creating Venom and his views have always been that Venom is a monster and should be treated as such.
So why would Venom, a film that seems to be portraying its antihero as a monster, do well to place more focus on its human characters than on the alien creature at its heart? Plainly put, the human element adds much needed depth to an otherwise thin, violent character.
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The reason why superhero films work is that the hero's powers are often closely entwined with their identity, which allows for unique character exploration. Venom appears to be leaning away from the superhero genre and into horror. Horror film monsters are typically all power and no real identity, much like Venom without Eddie Brock. This film has to avoid the same flaws most horror films tend to possess: characters that are written thinly to make way for an overabundance of the monster. We've seen how that fault leads to lackluster horror films. If Venom is to succeed with its character, its best bet is to give us just enough Venom to keep us excited and no more.
We'll just have to wait and see if that is indeed what Ruben Fleischer has planned for the character, or if this will just end up disappointing audiences by giving us too much.
Directed by Ruben Fleischer, Venom will be in theatres Oct 5. The film stars Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock, Michelle Williams as Ann Weying and Riz Ahmed as Dr. Carlton Drake.