Venom co-creator Todd McFarlane on potential Spider-Man face-off

Venom made more than $1 billion at the box office, and that’s without his traditional foe, Spider-Man. Could the two ever face-off again?

Venom may have been slammed by critics for its confusing tone and inconsistent characterisation, but audiences loved it.

Well, they paid to see it — which is the only measure of audience love the studio accountants care about.

So, yeah, they loved it. They loved it to the tune of $1.1 billion ($US855 million) at the box office.

That’s all exciting news for Todd McFarlane, who in 1988 as a 27-year-old Canadian with an authority problem, drew the first full appearance of Venom/Eddie Brock.

As co-creator along with David Michelinie, McFarlane became a superstar in the comics world for bringing to life a sometimes antihero, sometimes-villain Spider-Man nemesis with an imposing hulking physique and a wicked mind.

To promote the Venom DVD/Blu-ray/digital release, McFarlane chats to news.com.au about seeing his creation come to life on the big screen, if we’ll ever see him face off with Spider-Man and what’s ahead for the Spawn movie he’s about to direct.

Do you remember your reaction to seeing Tom Hardy transform into Venom for the first time?

I saw it at the premiere. I wasn’t going into it with any expectations. I drew a big, hulking, gnarly, bad-arse Venom years ago, and I just wanted to see a big, nasty, gnarly version of him.

Because in Amazing Spider-Man 3, I was a little bit disappointed — the Venom that Topher Grace’s character turned into, he didn’t get big. I remember sitting in that movie thinking, “OK, costume’s going up, it’s time to get bigger, OK, it’s halfway up his body, time to get bigger”, and it never got bigger! And I was like, “Awww, come on! Darn it!”

Yes, most gnarly

But that’s just me, I’m being biased. I could see snippets of this Venom in the trailer and I could see they had given him these big bulky shoulders and stuff, and I go, “man, they’re going to make him big, the way I drew him”.

I intentionally made him big so he would be a formidable villain, not only for Spider-Man but anyone else he would go up against. So I sat there and I wasn’t going to worry about anything else — I just needed to see big, and then Eddie Brock turned into Venom and I went, ‘there he is, there’s my baby!’

So I thanked (director) Ruben (Fleischer), ‘thanks dude, I only had one box to check and you checked it’. I got my baby onscreen so I’m good.

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What did you think of the balance the film struck between antihero and supervillain? Why do you think audiences empathised with a guy that eats people’s heads?

I think that’s OK. And here’s why. In the last 10 years, these superhero universes are getting built in front of us. If you make all those movies and stories the same flavour, then there’s the danger of people becoming tired of it because they’ll think they’re watching the same movie.

Todd McFarlane co-created Venom in 1988

So you need to add variety. Oh, let’s do a funny movie and then you get Guardians of the Galaxy. Oh, let’s do a funny R-rated movie and you get Deadpool. Oh, let’s do a serious R-rated movie and call it Logan, and maybe we’ll see something even more serious than Logan with Joker.

Let’s take a guy who’s a villain and make it an antihero and call it Venom. And not only is it working, it’s working to the tune of a billion dollars. So what it’s telling me is there’s a giant appetite that’s not even close to being fed with all these various characters.

I don’t think audiences are going ‘I need this movie to be like the last movie’, there’s almost a little bit of the opposite reaction going on — ‘I hope this movie isn’t going to be like the last four movies because I don’t want to be digesting the same movie’.

They want a variety in their superheroes and Venom delivers the variety. He’s not only big like the Hulk, he’s nasty like Wolverine, and people like Wolverine. He’ll go and do what he needs to do and he doesn’t care if he needs to break a couple of rules. I always like those characters, the ones that don’t care.

MORE: Venom review — An antihero with no teeth

Anti-hero or villain?

Do you think there’s a limit in how far Venom can push that kind of irreverence before he becomes a villain again onscreen?

Here’s my guess, and I think it’s applicable to almost every superhero character there is, the longer they have success, the more you’re going to see different applications of them.

Because you don’t want to get into the 10th version of any movie and think it’s the same as the last nine. You’re going to have the deconstruction of all characters at some point.

Let’s say that Eddie Brock decides he wants to be good no matter what but if the costume has some power over him then there’s a conflict. To me, then the interest is in who’s in control and you can’t control your own personality at that point.

Venom is 300 issues of one comic book and this is only one movie. We’ll all be dead before they even scratch the surface of what they can do with this character.

They’re going to get better, because you learn on every movie, so why wouldn’t Venom 2 be better, right? And there will be a Venom 3 — and I’m making this all up — but how do you keep topping the one before it? Surprise! Because number five has Spider-Man in it! And people will go, “what?!”

Even Topher Grace has said Tom Hardy is a better Venom

Is that what you would like to see? This version of Venom up against Spider-Man? And if that doesn’t happen, do you feel like that journey won’t be complete?

No, because one of the criticisms I read the most before the movie came out, is how is this possible that Venom could exist without Spider-Man?

Of course he can, as a matter of fact, not only can he, he must. Because if Venom is only as good as Spider-Man, he’s not a good character.

Not only do I think he can exist without Spider-Man, go read the comic books because he’s probably had 260 issues in which Spider-Man has not been in his comic book. That character isn’t worthy if he can’t stand on his own.

And then you’re going to see Carnage, which is the next natural step. The potential is there — are they going to do any of it? I don’t know, the name’s Todd, only rhymes with god. There are lots of fun possibilities — it can last decades.

Did you take any lessons from how Venom turned out in how you want to move forward with the Spawn movie?

No, I don’t say that in a negative way but I had already written the script by the time I saw the Venom movie so I already had my movie locked and loaded. I’d been directing the Spawn movie in my head for a decade, and I’ve been living with my Spawn movie for a long time.

Venom is out now on DVD/Blu-ray/digital.

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