So, right after Josh Trank released “Chronicle”, everybody was after him for new superhero movies. And according to movie gossip, he may have settled on one: Venom.
This may not be true, and honestly, we really hope it isn’t. A “Venom” movie is a terrible idea in a lot of respects. Venom, at root, is kind of a crappy character, especially Eddie Brock; in most incarnations, he’s a whiny, egotistical bully (notice that currently the suit is worn by…Flash Thompson.) Take away the suit, and you just want to slap him. That makes a good villain, because you want him to get hurt, a lot, but that makes a terrible protagonist.
Then there’s the audience; who wants to go see this movie aside from a small group of nerds? The various Venom solo books have never quite taken off. The character was last genuinely hot fifteen years ago or so. It’s not like his introduction to the main moviegoing audience was any great shakes. Consider Sony’s track record with this stuff: “Daredevil”, “Ghost Rider”, “Elektra”.
Maybe Sony is hoping to get a “dark Spider-Man” franchise going, or just squeeze the Spidey rights for every nickel they can get before Disney takes them back. And to be fair, every problem here could be solved with a good script; Trank is a talented director, and if he brings Max Landis aboard, they could probably make a good, even great, movie out of Venom. But asking Hollywood to make a movie with a good script is a tall order. If this goes forward, we hope for everyone’s sake this is “Spider-Man”, not “Ghost Rider”.
image courtesy Marvel