Why a whole new comic book universe is riding on Tom Hardy’s Venom movie

ONLY the most diehard comic book fans will know who Venom even is, but there’s a whole lot riding on Tom Hardy’s new superhero movie.

MOVIE fans might be asking themselves a couple of very valid questions this week, namely, who the hell is Venom and why does he have his own $130 million dollar movie?

“Venom is cool, man — he’s a badass,” says Tom Hardy, the UK actor tasked with bringing to life the latest character to leap from the pages of the Marvel comics stable.

The Oscar nominee plays journalist Eddie Brock, who combines with a CGI black-slime alien symbiote to become the terrifying, unpredictable, razor-toothed title character.

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The head-chomping, bug-eyed Venom made his first appearance as a villain in a 1988 Spider-Man comic, proving so popular that he scored a solo title five years later as more of a vigilante antihero. Plans to get him on to the big screen have been around for nearly as long, with a 1997 version starring Dolph Lundgren (really) never making it into production, and an ill-advised cameo with Topher Grace as the character in Sam Raimi’s third Spider-Man movie disowned by just about all concerned.

Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock in a scene from Venom.

A transformed Hardy in Venom. Picture: Sony Pictures.

But with the superhero movie craze showing no signs of abating, and with Spidey successfully integrated into the Marvel Cinematic Universe juggernaut, Venom’s time has finally come.

Like many casual fans, Hardy had no clue who the character was when he was first approached to sign up for three Venom movies. He had to be thoroughly schooled by his 10-year-old son. The Brit, who already has superhero runs on the board thanks to his appearance as deranged villain Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, has always excelled in darker, ambiguous roles, from Max Rockatansky in Mad Max: Fury Road to the Kray twins in Legend. So he thoroughly embraced the challenge of encapsulating two conflicting personalities trapped in the one body.

“My son was telling me all about him — he loves Venom,” says Hardy, who wandered around incognito with his lad at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, ground zero for geek culture. “He is a great character to play because Venom is ruthless and, basically, there are no rules. He’s so complex. There was a lot of range to play within the psychological dynamics of this superheromovie.”

Advance footage shown at Comic-Con drew a rapturous reception earlier this year, but as if there wasn’t enough pressure to deliver for diehard fans, there’s a whole lot more riding on Venom. In this day and age, a stand-alone superhero film is just about unheard of.

Inspired by the Iron Man-led decade of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and its 20 (and counting) interconnected movies that have taken a record-breaking $24 billion at the box office, every studio with the rights to a character with a cape or a special power wants a piece of the action. Sony hopes Venom will be the first entry in its confusingly titled Sony’s Universe of Marvel Characters.

Hardy is overtaken by an alien symbiotein Venom. Picture: Sony Pictures

The studio already has an animated Spider-Man movie, Into the Spider-Verse, releasing in December and is developing films around even more obscure characters such as Silver Sable, Black Cat and Morbius the Living Vampire, the last of which is set to star Oscar-winner Jared Leto.

Even more confusingly, while Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, who has a foot in both camps, may well face off with Venom or any of the aforementioned characters in future Sony films, it’s unlikely that the Disney-owned Iron Man, Captain America, Thor orother associated Avengers will show up any time soon.

Basing an entire cinematic universe around a bunch of comic characters only known to the most diehard of fans might seem like a big ask for Sony, but recognisability does not necessarily translate to box office success.

When the most famous superhero in history, Superman, kicked off the DC Extended Universe in 2013 with Man Of Steel, he had his Kryptonian butt handed back to him at the box office by a rag-tag bunch of no names called Guardians Of the Galaxy a year later.

And teaming him with Batman and Wonder Woman in the underperforming Justice League has left the DC Extended Universe at a crossroads. Its future now largely rests on the impossibly broad shoulders of Jason Momoa, whose solo Aquaman film opens in December.

As a peripheral hero — and something of a whipping boy due to his power of, er, summoning fish — the Gold Coast-shot blockbusterproved to be an intriguing challenge for its Aussie director James Wan.

James Wan directs actors Amber Heard, Jason Momoa and Willem Dafoe on the Gold Coast set of film Aquaman. Picture: Warner

“I didn’t want to do just any superhero film,” Wan says. “I wanted to do one that I really felt I could put my stamp on. With the fact that Aquaman is a story that’s never been told cinematically before on the big screen, and the fact that I get the opportunity to tell a really big world-creation film, those two elements made this project really enticing for me.”

On much safer ground is the next cab of the MCU rank, Captain Marvel, which will release in March.

Only the most committed of comic book nerds could pick her out of a superhero line-up, but with Oscar-winner Brie Larsen in the role of Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel, not to the mention the post-credits shout-out in the most recent Avengers movie (and the promise of a pivotal role in the next one), Marvel’s first solo movie headlined by a female character should be a slam dunk.

The trailer scored more than 109 million views in 24 hours when it was released last month, sending anticipation sky high for the movie that also stars Jude Law and Aussie Ben Mendelsohn.

Larsen, best known for her more dramatic roles, told Good Morning America: “I don’t feel like a superhero — this is all so surreal and new to me.

“What brought me to this film was Carol, this character. She’s so inspiring and incredible, so to have the opportunity to play a role like this is amazing and I hope that just a little bit of her amazingness and her strength can rub off on me.”

Venom opens tomorrow. Aquman opens December 13. Captain Marvel opens March 7.

Originally published as Why a whole new comic book universe is riding on Tom Hardy’s Venom movie