Venom is a 2018 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character Eddie Brock / Venom. The first film in Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU), it was directed by Ruben Fleischer from a screenplay by Jeff Pinkner, Scott Rosenberg, and Kelly Marcel. Tom Hardy stars as Eddie Brock and Venom, alongside Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed, Scott Haze, and Reid Scott. In the film, Eddie, a struggling journalist, gains superpowers after becoming the host of Venom, an alien symbiote whose species plans to invade Earth.
Following Venom's appearance in Spider-Man 3 (2007), Sony Pictures attempted to develop a spin-off film based on the Venom character, which was stalled due to issues with the company's ongoing Spider-Man franchise. In March 2016, work began on a new version that would start a new shared universe featuring the non-Spider-Man Marvel characters that the studio possessed film rights to. Sony also originally intended for the Venom film to share the world of the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), but ultimately distanced the film from Spider-Man. Sony's Columbia Pictures produced the film in association with Marvel Entertainment. In March 2017, Rosenberg and Pinkner were set to write, with Fleischer and Hardy added in May; Marcel subsequently joined to rewrite the script. Filming took place from October 2017 to January 2018 in Atlanta, New York City, and San Francisco. The film was primarily inspired by the comic book miniseries Venom: Lethal Protector (1993) and the story arc "Planet of the Symbiotes" (1995). Ludwig Göransson was hired to compose the film's score, marking his second Marvel film after Black Panther (2018).
Venom premiered at the Regency Village Theater on October 1, 2018, and was released in the United States on October 5. Despite generally negative reviews from critics, Hardy's performance and his character's relationship with Venom were praised, and the film became the seventh-highest-grossing film of 2018, earning $856.1 million worldwide and setting several box office records for an October release. Two sequels have been released: Let There Be Carnage (2021) and The Last Dance (2024).
Plot
While exploring space for new habitable worlds, a probe belonging to the bio-engineering corporation Life Foundation discovers a comet covered in symbiotic lifeforms. The probe returns to Earth with four samples, but one escapes and causes the ship to crash in Miri. The Life Foundation transports the other three to their research facility in San Francisco, where they discover that the symbiotes cannot survive without oxygen-breathing hosts, which often fatally reject the symbiosis. Investigative journalist Eddie Brock reads about the human trials in a classified document in the possession of his fiancée Anne Weying, an attorney preparing a lawsuit defense for the Life Foundation. Eddie confronts Life Foundation CEO Carlton Drake about the trials, leading to Eddie and Anne both losing their jobs and Anne ending her relationship with Eddie.
Six months later, one of Drake's symbiotes dies due to carelessness. Eddie is approached by Dora Skirth, one of Drake's scientists, who wants to expose him, disturbed by the human trials. She helps Eddie break into the facility to search for evidence, and he finds his friend Maria, held as one of the test subjects. He attempts to rescue her, but the symbiote possessing her transfers to his body instead, leaving her dead. Eddie escapes, immediately displaying strange symptoms. He reaches out to Anne and her new boyfriend, Dr. Dan Lewis for help. Due to Skirth's betrayal, Drake exposes her to the last captive symbiote, killing both. This leaves the symbiote inside Eddie as the only known surviving specimen.
Drake sends mercenaries to retrieve the symbiote from Eddie, but it manifests around his body as a monstrous creature that fights off the attackers. It introduces itself to Eddie as Venom and explains that the comet is searching for worlds where the symbiotes can possess and devour the inhabitants. Eddie breaks into his old boss' office to turn in evidence of Drake's crimes but is surrounded by SWAT officers. He escapes using the superhuman attributes the symbiote gives him. Anne takes Eddie to Dan, where they explain that the symbiote is rotting Eddie's internal organs. Eddie notes that the symbiote has two weaknesses: high-pitched noises and fire. Although Venom claims the organ damage can be reversed, Anne uses an MRI machine to separate him from Eddie, whom Drake's men then capture.
Meanwhile, the fourth symbiote, Riot, makes its way from Malaysia to San Francisco by hopping from body to body. It bonds with Drake, who agrees to take Riot in his space probe to bring back the rest of the symbiotes to Earth. Anne bonds with Venom so they can free Eddie. When Eddie and Venom are bonded again, the latter promises that he now wants to protect the Earth from his kind as he likes Eddie and wants to stay with him. After a lengthy battle with Riot, Venom damages the space probe as it takes off, causing it to explode and kill both Riot and Drake.
After the incident, Eddie returns to journalism, while Anne believes that Venom also died in the explosion. However, the pair remain secretly bonded and set out to protect San Francisco by devouring criminals. Eddie later interviews Cletus Kasady, an incarcerated serial killer who promises "carnage" when he escapes.
Cast
Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock / Venom:An investigative journalist who becomes the host of Venom, an alien symbiote that imbues him with super-human abilities. Director Ruben Fleischer said that unlike a werewolf or Jekyll and Hyde, the relationship between Eddie and the symbiote is a "hybrid", with the two characters sharing a body and working together. Hardy was drawn to this duality, and compared the pair to the animated characters Ren and Stimpy. Hardy gave Eddie an "aw-shucks American accent" while using a "James Brown lounge lizard"-like voice for Venom, that was later "modulated to sound more sinister". Hardy called Eddie an antihero who would "do whatever he has to" to accomplish a goal. Brad Venable provided additional voiceover for Venom's pain and grunting sounds, and his voice was combined with Hardy's for some dialogue, such as "We are Venom". Michelle Williams as Anne Weying:An attorney and Eddie's ex-fiancée. Williams was excited at the prospect of her character becoming She-Venom in the future as she does in the comics, and Fleischer felt that it would be fun to give fans an Easter egg of this by briefly showing the character host the symbiote during a scene in the film. This was kept a secret until the release of the film, and Fleischer hoped that the positive response to the appearance would lead to more She-Venom in future Venom films or even a standalone She-Venom film. Anne's line "I love you, but I love myself more" was added by Williams as a reference to the MeToo movement. Riz Ahmed as Carlton Drake / Riot:A genius inventor and leader of the Life Foundation experimenting on the symbiotes. Ahmed explained that Drake is trying to save the future of humanity when he discovers the symbiote, with Fleischer adding that Drake has a positive goal but a "moral ambiguity" that leads to him testing his science on other people. Drake is eventually bonded to another symbiote known as Riot, which Fleischer described as a "body-hopper". Scott Haze as Roland Treece: Drake's head of security. Reid Scott as Dan Lewis: Anne's new boyfriend, a doctor who tries to help Eddie.
Additionally, Jenny Slate portrays Life Foundation scientist Dora Skirth, Melora Walters plays Maria, a homeless woman who briefly hosts Venom, and Chris O'Hara appears as John Jameson, an astronaut who briefly hosts Riot. Also appearing are Sam Medina as a thug who Venom confronts, Peggy Lu as convenience store owner , Michelle Lee as a Malaysian EMT who briefly hosts Riot, Sope Aluko and Wayne Péré as Life Foundation scientists, Scott Deckert as Eddie's obnoxious neighbor, Emilio Rivera as a security guard Eddie is friends with, and Ron Cephas Jones, uncredited, as Eddie's boss. Woody Harrelson plays Cletus Kasady in the mid-credits scene, while Stan Lee makes a cameo appearance as a dog-walker who talks to Eddie. A clip from the animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), featuring Shameik Moore as Miles Morales and Jake Johnson as Peter B. Parker, is included after the credits.
Production Development Early attempts and cancellation By 1997, David S. Goyer had written a script for a film featuring the Marvel Comics character Venom, which was to be produced by New Line Cinema. Dolph Lundgren was in talks to star in the film, which would feature the character Carnage as the main antagonist. The project did not move forward, and the film rights to the character moved to Sony Pictures along with those for the character Spider-Man, of whom Venom is an antagonist in the comics. Eddie Brock, the alter-ego of Venom, would appear in Sony's Spider-Man 3 (2007), with Topher Grace in the role. Grace was intended to only briefly appear as Eddie, but became a major villain as both Eddie and Venom because producer Avi Arad felt the series had relied too much on director Sam Raimi's personal favorite Spider-Man villains, and not characters that modern fans were actually interested in. Raimi had been hesitant to explore the character due to his "lack of humanity". Arad revealed plans for a spin-off film focused on Venom in July 2007.
Sony was actively developing Venom alongside direct sequels to Spider-Man 3 by July 2008, hoping the character could "add longevity" to the franchise in a similar fashion to Wolverine in 20th Century Fox's X-Men films. Jacob Estes had written a script for the film, but the studio chose to seek out new writers for a different approach from that draft. Estes's draft centered on Eddie trying to reinvent himself as a hero with the help of a tough waitress named Honey Horowitz. Eddie would have gone up against Cletus Kasady, depicted as an opera obsessed killer, who becomes Carnage after biting Eddie. Estes wrote the script with Grace in mind to return while Martin Donovan was his pick for Cletus, and Rashida Jones and Maya Rudolph for Honey. However, Sony was not yet convinced that Grace could serve as the lead actor in the film. That September, Sony hired Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese to write a new script, while industry insiders suggested that Grace should return for the spin-off "because the likeable actor could be a sympathetic evildoer", in response to Venom co-creator Todd McFarlane suggesting that a Venom film could not do well with a villain as the central character. Wernick and Reese had pitched an original story idea for the film to Sony, which Reese described as a "realistic, grounded, a little more dark take on the character". The pair then worked on an outline with Sony and Marvel, who "had specific rules about the villain and the backstory and stuff like that". They had completed a draft by April 2009, which included a role written specifically for Stan Lee, and featured a sequence where the Venom symbiote jumps "from body to body [through a city], and each person that it inhabits ends up becoming really violent and striking someone else and then it jumps to [them]".