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So…the first two aren’t great films, but I enjoyed them enough to be in for this one. Even though it’s also not looking great.

At least you can watch it and enjoy it without having to first watch another 5 or 6 separate series of other superheroes just to work out who half the side acts are!

This looks kind of shockingly bad. Big Ang Lee Hulk vibes visually and no real big story hook. Klyntar invasion a bit of Area 51? Feels more like the ideas of a story than an actual plot. I didn't have huge expectations, but I have no idea what they're going for here.

Yeah, it feels like they ran out of ideas of who Venom could face given that he's already had two antagonists that are symbiote hosts, so they just cut out the host part and threw in symbiotes instead. Sorta surprised they didn't got the Toxin route, but Sony is just kind of throwing to see what sticks when it comes to their super hero movies and this definitely ain't sticking.

Also isn't it kind of hard to do Venom without Spiderman at all as well

 Overread wrote:
Also isn't it kind of hard to do Venom without Spiderman at all as well

100%, since the whole name of Venom is supposed to be a reflection of the Symbiote and Eddie Brock's hatred of Peter Parker/Spiderman and that they're going to be "poison" to him. Unfortunately, Sony's very late and pathetic attempt to chase the trend of making their own universe doesn't make sense when they deliberately omit the central character that all the other characters they are using are based around. I'm surprised they haven't attempted to do a Betty Brant rom com spin off or a weird J. Jonah Jameson origin story yet.

Eh, I’m down for it. The first two were the right kind of stupid and this looks to be in the same vein.

Best I can say is that its always good for Chiwetel Ejiofor to get some work.

Il watch it on netflix or whatever when it hits streaming. Sonys solo marvel outing are bad at best and morbius/madame webb at worst. I think not contributing to their box office is a good way to potentially get them to stop doing this garbage.

 Grimskul wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Also isn't it kind of hard to do Venom without Spiderman at all as well

100%, since the whole name of Venom is supposed to be a reflection of the Symbiote and Eddie Brock's hatred of Peter Parker/Spiderman and that they're going to be "poison" to him. Unfortunately, Sony's very late and pathetic attempt to chase the trend of making their own universe doesn't make sense when they deliberately omit the central character that all the other characters they are using are based around. I'm surprised they haven't attempted to do a Betty Brant rom com spin off or a weird J. Jonah Jameson origin story yet.

Venom solo film has been an executive dream since the second Sam Rami film started. They absolutely wanted to do it with Garfield but when that failed and their lent out version succeeded they just kind of abandoned plans to do it right and made the films without Spidey.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Also isn't it kind of hard to do Venom without Spiderman at all as well

100%, since the whole name of Venom is supposed to be a reflection of the Symbiote and Eddie Brock's hatred of Peter Parker/Spiderman and that they're going to be "poison" to him. Unfortunately, Sony's very late and pathetic attempt to chase the trend of making their own universe doesn't make sense when they deliberately omit the central character that all the other characters they are using are based around. I'm surprised they haven't attempted to do a Betty Brant rom com spin off or a weird J. Jonah Jameson origin story yet.

Venom solo film has been an executive dream since the second Sam Rami film started. They absolutely wanted to do it with Garfield but when that failed and their lent out version succeeded they just kind of abandoned plans to do it right and made the films without Spidey.

But thats the point. Their desire to make venom movies is exactly as shallow as "People like venom. Lets do venom." It's not about the character or their stories or telling a good new story that gets to the heart of the character. The executives just want venom on screen and they don't care how it gets done. Thats why it sucks. Thats why ALL the sony stuff sucks.

I still recall the into to the Peter Rabbit film. It was literally a middle finger to the original tales and adaptations.

Now don't get me wrong, there might be a half decent film (for kids) in there. But its most certainly NOT a Peter Rabbit story.


But yeah that seems to just be the Sony film department.

 Lance845 wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Also isn't it kind of hard to do Venom without Spiderman at all as well

100%, since the whole name of Venom is supposed to be a reflection of the Symbiote and Eddie Brock's hatred of Peter Parker/Spiderman and that they're going to be "poison" to him. Unfortunately, Sony's very late and pathetic attempt to chase the trend of making their own universe doesn't make sense when they deliberately omit the central character that all the other characters they are using are based around. I'm surprised they haven't attempted to do a Betty Brant rom com spin off or a weird J. Jonah Jameson origin story yet.

Venom solo film has been an executive dream since the second Sam Rami film started. They absolutely wanted to do it with Garfield but when that failed and their lent out version succeeded they just kind of abandoned plans to do it right and made the films without Spidey.

But thats the point. Their desire to make venom movies is exactly as shallow as "People like venom. Lets do venom." It's not about the character or their stories or telling a good new story that gets to the heart of the character. The executives just want venom on screen and they don't care how it gets done. Thats why it sucks. Thats why ALL the sony stuff sucks.

I was not attempting to defend their decision

I am curious how much money they have to lose from these movies bombing before they learn their lesson on trying to force this "made by committee" junk onto the public.

The only good thing to come out of it are the memes from Morbin Time.

Unfortunately the last 2 venoms turned a profit. So here is hoping the third one gaks the bed like Morbius and Webb did. Then we can sit back and watch Kraven and El Muerto do the same.

I enjoyed the second one, although admittedly that might just be because my expectations were low after the first.

So long as they haven't just used all of the fun parts in the trailer, this should be entertaining enough, in a 'straight to video sequel' sort of way...

Well, it looks like trailer countdowns are a thing now...

Essentially the films were fun when it was Hardy chatting to himself and them being amusing. The Boss fights and similar were by far the worse bits. SO if they maximise the silly chat and minimise the world ending horror, it will be fine

Oh geez they are going straight for Knull and the King in Black.

F'in A.

 Overread wrote:
I still recall the into to the Peter Rabbit film. It was literally a middle finger to the original tales and adaptations.

Now don't get me wrong, there might be a half decent film (for kids) in there. But its most certainly NOT a Peter Rabbit story.


But yeah that seems to just be the Sony film department.

It's not just Sony; a lot of streaming studios have that problem too; Foundation series and arguably Rings of Power have the same disconnect.

Pretty stupid, but it knows it and just has fun.

 AduroT wrote:
Pretty stupid, but it knows it and just has fun.

I can respect that, and these days, feel like we could use more of that sort of writing.

 Lance845 wrote:
Unfortunately the last 2 venoms turned a profit. So here is hoping the third one gaks the bed like Morbius and Webb did. Then we can sit back and watch Kraven and El Muerto do the same.

Don't worry the Marvel's tanked the hardest.

But you do have the Nicholas Cage live action Spider-Man:Noir to look forward to.

Sony leased the Entire Spider-Man catalog to Amazon. Which means Amazon now can make the worst abomination in Marvel's Comics come to life... Ben Reilly and the Spider-Clone Saga.

See, those other movies don't sound too band in comparison of what they could've made.

Thing is?

The Marvel is a good film, and didn’t deserve to tank. At all.

Morbius (which I’ve seen) is just poop. Terrible leading man in a terrible lead role in a terrible plot with a terrible script.

Matt Smith has some fun though, nobody else did. Spesh not the audience.

Haven’t seen Madame Webb. Yet. I eventually will, once it’s free on streaming,

Yeah, I thought the Marvels was better than Captain Marvel or Eternals or the last Antman movie or even Dr Strange Wanda Gone Wild. Unfortunately it was came at the tail end of a slump that built up a lot of ill will for MCU movies and wasn’t good enough to overcome that. And for whatever reason the more comedic (or silly) Marvel movies don’t seem to resonate with as large an audience as the rest.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Yeah, I thought the Marvels was better than Captain Marvel or Eternals or the last Antman movie or even Dr Strange Wanda Gone Wild. Unfortunately it was came at the tail end of a slump that built up a lot of ill will for MCU movies and wasn’t good enough to overcome that. And for whatever reason the more comedic (or silly) Marvel movies don’t seem to resonate with as large an audience as the rest.

I'd agree it was better than Eternals or Captain Marvel. I'd have put it close to on par with the newest Antman or Dr. Strange. The real issue with that was the cognitive dissonance with Secret Wars Fury and Marvel's Fury. Release order of things definitely hurt that one.

It definitely felt like it was supposed to be the follow up to Far From Home, likely without Kamala and potentially to be the multiverse reveal. All things that probably would have gotten more people to buy tickets for it, though I'm not sure it would have been as good of a film. It's very mid tier (early style weak villain being the main drawback) but definitely better than a lot of Phase 4.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Thing is?

The Marvel is a good film, and didn’t deserve to tank. At all.

Morbius (which I’ve seen) is just poop. Terrible leading man in a terrible lead role in a terrible plot with a terrible script.

Matt Smith has some fun though, nobody else did. Spesh not the audience.

Haven’t seen Madame Webb. Yet. I eventually will, once it’s free on streaming,

Yeah, I enjoyed the hell out of the Marvels. Haven't got around to Morbius yet (it's not a priority).

The weirdest thing about Madame Web is the amount of effort they put into casting and making the assorted Spiderwoman costumes look fantastic for the 3 seconds they appear... compared to the complete lack of effort put into the entire rest of the movie. It has at least some of the ingredients to be a good movie, but just felt phoned in.


Venom was one I struggled with at first... I didn't particularly enjoy the first one, but it was ok. Loved the second one... Woody Harrelson as Cletus Kasady was perfect, for me, and they got the balance better with the humour. And I found I enjoyed the first one more on a second run through, possibly just because of tempered expectations... So I'm expecting to also enjoy this one, even if I'm still a little disappointed to have a whole run of Venom movies that don't include Spiderman at least enough to actually establish that relationship at all.