JACK PARKS: ‘Venom’ will outlive shame of Topher Grace

There’s a new Marvel movie coming out! Not “Avengers: Infinity War,” I haven’t seen that yet and probably won’t for a while. So no spoilers there.

No, this one is for the more hard core (harder core? hardcore-er?) fans, while still trying to appeal to the general public. I’m talking, or rather I guess I’m writing, about Venom.

Now, for those of you who remember the tragic “Spiderman 3,” you may remember Venom from the 15 seconds of screentime they gave him as the third villain. He was the weird looking black alien ooze monster that threatened either Kirsten Dunst or the girl Tobey Maguire went out with to try and make Kirsten Dunst jealous by doing some kind of weird dork mating ritual at a jazz club. I could look it up, but I honestly don’t want to remember any more about that movie than I already do.

Anyway.

Venom was never actually mentioned by name in the movie and was played by Topher Grace, who gave the performance of a lifetime by somehow portraying a character on screen even more pathetic than on “That 70’s Show.” His appearance in the film was probably the most disappointing part to Spider-Man fans, in a movie that included a scene where Tobey Maguire tries to make Kirsten Dunst jealous by doing some kind of weird dork mating ritual at a jazz club.

The story of how Venom came to be is at least somewhat accurate to the comics; an alien ball of black goo called a Symbiote attached itself to Spider-Man and gave him new powers and an awesome black Spider-Man suit. The symbiote was evil, though, and eventually attacked Spider-Man, who defeated it using sound waves from a cathedral.

Journalist Eddie Brock is also at the cathedral. Disgraced by Spider-Man and suicidal, he is begging God’s forgiveness when the symbiote bonds with him and the two become the monster known as Venom. Venom/Brock and Spider-Man/Parker serve as polar opposites to each other and their clashes are intensely personal.

Having written that out, it’s hard to see how they could’ve screwed it up so badly in the movie. Ugh.

For those who aren’t familiar with the character from the comics, this new movie promises to be closer to the character. Instead of being a whiny dweeb like Topher Grace, this incarnation will be portrayed by certified badass Tom Hardy which is already a huge step in the right direction. Casting Tom Hardy is always a huge step in the right direction, no matter the role.

I’m curious to see how it works out, though, because Spider-Man isn’t in this movie. Venom and Spider-Man are both Marvel characters, but the film rights have been with Sony since 2002. There’s been some finagling in recent years, which managed to get Spider-Man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but that didn’t extend to other characters.

This new film isn’t in the MCU, but it is somehow still in the same continuity as “Spider-Man Homecoming” and is instead intended to launch a new franchise and cinematic universe for Sony. There are plans to eventually be some crossover with Spider-Man, and potentially the rest of the MCU as well.

So there are going to be, of necessity, some significant changes to the origin story. There will also likely be some changes to the character’s motivation. The comic book character became so popular with fans that he was given his own comic and became an anti-hero, helping the good guys out by killing bad guys from time to time. Based on previews, this appears to be the direction filmmakers will be taking.

The bad guys in this one appear to be some kind of government/private enterprise science type folks similar to Willem Dafoe’s Norman Osborn. In fact, based on previews, it seems the movie itself may be an anti-Spider-Man-type-thing. (Is that enough hyphens?) I’m excited to see where it goes.

There’s also a lot of anticipation for another symbiote character who is as of yet unannounced: Cletus Kasady. Cletus Kasady is a psycopathic serial killer who bonds with an even more psychopathic symbiote to become Carnage, common enemy of both Spider-Man and Venom.

There’s no official word on who’s playing him, or even if he will be in the movie, but I’ve got a pretty good idea. A friend and I were looking at the cast list a few weeks ago trying to figure it out, and when we saw Woody Harrelson listed with no character attached it was a no-brainer. I would be very surprised if it went to someone else.

I doubt Carnage will be in it much. He’ll probably be mentioned and even appear as Kasady a few times throughout the movie and then toward the very end, perhaps in a tag scene before or after the credits, we’ll see him bonding with the symbiote. Probably through a cut in his skin or something, he’ll leap toward the screen then it’ll go to black and we’ll have to wait for the next one.

I think it’s going to be a great movie. I’m not a fan of origin stories in movies, but since this is new ground for the character, I can forgive it this time. As long as we don’t see Tom Hardy trying to to make Kirsten Dunst jealous by doing some kind of weird dork mating ritual at a jazz club.

Actually, you know what? Even that would be awesome with Tom Hardy.