Once upon a time, Sony Pictures dreamed of building its own Marvel Cinematic Universe — one powered entirely by Spider-Man villains and side characters, but just without ol’ webhead himself. Shockingly, that turned out to be a problem. Morbius, Madame Web, and Kraven the Hunter all crashed and burned at the box office, earning the kind of reviews that make studio executives reconsider their life choices. And yet, in the middle of that chaos, one franchise actually clicked: Venom. The critics didn’t love it, but audiences did, so much so that the trilogy grossed $1.8 billion worldwide. So what made Venom resonate when Sony’s other Marvel misfires didn’t?
The Playlist recently posed that question to Ruben Fleischer, who directed the first Venom movie. “I can’t really speak to too much because I haven’t seen all the other ones,” Fleischer said. “But I think something that people love about ‘Venom’ is that he’s funny. You know what I mean? It doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s kind of a ridiculous premise that you have an alien living inside you and sharing space with you.“
Fleischer continued, “I kind of leaned into the—I don’t know if it’s really body horror—but ‘All of Me’ with Steve Martin was a big inspiration. ‘An American Werewolf in London’ was another one. Both are tonally on the more humorous side of things. I think ‘Venom’ is darker among the superhero franchises, just in terms of the way the character looks and his attitude. But he’s also really, really funny. So Tom Hardy was able to realize that wonderfully. And I think the charisma of Tom and of Venom himself is largely what has made it so popular among audiences.“
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Not being able to use Spider-Man created an “interesting challenge” for Fleischer and the team. Against all odds, they managed to pull it off, turning Venom into a character that wasn’t defined by his relationship with Spider-Man. “From my memory of it, granted it was a while ago, but from my memory of it, it was always distinct from Spider-Man,” he said. “Maybe there was the possibility of them crossing paths down the road, but inherent to ours was that it couldn’t be defined by that.“
Tom Hardy’s unhinged performance significantly contributed to the film’s success, and while Venom’s built-in popularity certainly gave the franchise an advantage over Morbius, Madame Web, and Kraven the Hunter, there had to be a way to make those characters work without turning the movies into absolute dumpster fires.
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