Hi, I'm Erik Voss, and we've been getting new updates about the upcoming Venom
movie, with spider-man's best villain getting his own solo film produced by
Sony. Tom Hardy will be playing Venom slash
Eddie Brock, and freaking Carnage is going to be playing the villain. So venom and
Carnage together in a movie is a huge deal, and this is probably why Sony
announced that this movie will definitely be rated R. And this R
rating is interesting, because it brings into question how Venom and Carnage
could ever fit into the overall cinematic universe of Marvel characters,
with the MCU known as pretty family-friendly versions of these
superheroes and villains. Now even though Sony and Marvel Studios
are partnering to allow spider-man as a character to cross over into the MCU, and
with movies like Spider-man: Homecoming, Marvel head, Kevin Feige, has made it
clear that this will not be the case for the Venom movie. So it sounds like Venom
and Carnage will be in their own separate movie universe, where maybe
spider-man might appear, according to Amy Pascal of Sony, but Venom won't appear in
scenes with or even really reference MCU characters like Iron Man, Captain
America, Thor or Hulk. Now at first this seems like kind of a bummer, because
these guys have a lot of fun interactions with all these other Marvel
characters in the comics, but I think this could ultimately be a good thing.
Why? Because Venom needs to have an R rating. He is a violent, monstrous killer,
Carnage even more so, and I just don't see Marvel Studios, in the direction that
it's currently going, being willing to adapt Venom and Carnage to screen in
their true terrifying forms. So let's talk about Venom and Carnage, why they're
such great villains, and why keeping them out of the Marvel side of the Cinematic
Universe might be the best thing for them. And potential spoiler warning, in
case any of my speculation with stuff from the comics ends up being in the
movie. So let's start with a little background on Venom. Venom comes from an
alien race of symbiotes who, in the comics, he attaches himself to Spider-man when
he was in Battle World, which is a big melee with a ton of different
superheroes and villains. So Peter's suit was damaged and the symbiote covered his
body, giving him this new awesome black suit with a white logo. It also had a
shape-shifting ability, allowing him to mimic wearing street clothes, and gave
him an unlimited and stronger supply of webbing. But then Peter learned that the
symbiote was really a parasite that eventually drains all the adrenaline
from its host, so he detached it using the
sonic waves from the bells in a church bell tower. And then the symbiote
sought out another person who hated Peter Parker, ex-journalist Eddie Brock,
who's career Peter ended. And it merged with Eddie Brock, creating Venom. Now
some of this backstory was adapted for the version of Venom that we saw in
Spider-man 3 with Topher Grace, and unfortunately that movie didn't really
do nearly enough with the character. Spider-man 3 really just mostly stuck
with Peter's relationship with a symbiote, which turned him into a kind of pervy
dancer, with the Eddie Brock / Venom subplots getting lost in Peter's conflicts
with Harry Osborn and Sandman. And as much as I love to watch James Franco
eating pie, I'd rather see Venom do some messed-up shit.
And this is why I'm excited about this R-rated Venom movie. Venom is savage, a
big part of its popularity is that he's very much a bizarro version of
Spider-man (and sorry to mix in a DC reference in there.) Like Peter Parker is
super friendly, and neighborhoody! He's a kid, he cracks jokes, but Venom is a total
monster. Since he previously bonded with Spider-man as a symbiote, all later
versions of Venom have Spider-man's powers, too. He's a lot stronger, and he's a
shapeshifter, and he's invisible to Spider-man's spidey
sense, making him a serious threat. In fact in the comics, he's considered by
Shield to be one of the biggest dangers to all of humanity,
up there with Magneto and Dr. Doom. And already, you just can't do that character
justice with a PG-13 MCU type movie that you would take little kids to go see.
Unless you want them to grow up to be cool. And the director currently attached
to Venom is Ruben Fleischer, who directed Zombieland, and I really hope that he
brings that same dark, violent sense of humor to this movie, too. Now I actually
kind of like Sam Raimi's design of the symbiote in Spider-man 3, but I think
Fleischer can build on that to make Venom even more monstrous and
stomach-turning. I'm just going to give you a few examples of some of the
sickening stuff that Venom has done in various versions of the comics. 1. Later
host of Venom, Mac Gargan formerly the Scorpion, isn't as good as Eddie Brock is
at controlling the symbiote, so he gives into some of the more animalistic urges,
specifically cannibalism. Yes, Venom freaking eats people. And that same
version of Venom also gets in a fight with Bullseye, who throws a small dog into
Venom's eye, and Venom continues fighting with the dog sticking out of his eye,
until later he pops it out and chucks it. Now another version of Venom detaches
from a host who's a mobster's son, Angelo Fortunato.
In the middle of a jump between buildings, he lets the guy fall to his
death. Then there's a really bad version of the Venom comics from the mid-2000s,
where Venom fights with the Thing from the Fantastic Four, and he kills him by
sticking his long tongue down his throat. And then there's another alternate
series of Marvel comics called What If, where the Battle World arc that I
mentioned earlier goes a different way, and Spider-man is on a planet with his
symbiote black suit, but then he gets hit with a sonic blast and the symbiote
detaches from Peter Parker's skeleton. That's right, Peter Parker had been dead
for years and the symbiote form of Venom was just Weekend at Bernie-ing his
corpse all this time! But really, it's not just this insane, creative violence that
makes Venom a more adult character, and yeah it isn't profanity either... it's the
sex. I'm kidding guys, I really don't want to see Venom have sex.
I really shouldn't've brought up that example... with the Thing. Really, it's the
deeper psychological component of Venom as a character. Now as a symbiote bonded
with a host, there's kind of a split personality competing for control of
Eddie Brock's mind. It's a toxic balance of the two organisms' hatred feeding and
enabling each other. And that was another element that the Spider-man 3 Venom just
didn't have enough time to go into. And really, I don't know how far the MCU
would be willing to explore that kind of psychological disorder. Like Iron Man 3
kind of touched on Tony Stark's PTSD from the Battle of New York, and
I guess Doctor Strange looked at Stephen's depression after his car accident,
but the competing voices in Eddie Brock's head are something that he has
to deal with in a very physical way, and that's a conflict that's going to take a
lot of maturity and patience to convey on screen. For example, look at Logan.
Director James Mangold said that the R rating for that movie wasn't just so he
could show Wolverine clawing through skulls, even though that was very cool and I'm
glad I got to see it. Mangold said that he wanted to explore characters and
relationships in a way that didn't also have to please audiences with shorter
attention spans. So that's why huge sections of Logan simply focused on the
mental, emotional, and physical toll that superpowers have taken on Logan and
Charles. They're people, not toys. They get sick, they aren't always likable, and
spoiler alert - seriously, stop watching if you haven't seen Logan -
they kiss! Just kidding, they die. Now I don't always need my superhero
movies to go that deep into a character's psychological trauma. Like Thor
Ragnarok looks like ridiculous fun, and I would be kind of bummed if it ever got
this serious, but in Venom's case, yeah, I really think it needs to be more
emotionally complex. And I really think Tom Hardy is perfect for that kind of
raw, physical role. He's a serious actor who puts his whole body into a
performance. I just hope that for this superhero villain he'll pick a
different voice. Your spidey sense won't save you now,
Parker. But let's move on to Carnage, the villain of this movie. Yeah, that's right,
Carnage is so awful that even Venom sees him as a threat that needs to be
stopped. So a little background on Carnage in the comics. So Carnage is the
asexual offspring of Venom's symbiote. And it attaches to Cletus Kasady,
who's a serial killer whom Eddie Brock shares a prison cell with. And Kasady is
already totally evil. As a kid, he tortured his family dog with an electric
drill, and he killed his grandmother by pushing her down a flight of stairs. He
also burned down the boys home that he was forced to live in. So when Kasady
becomes Carnage he just goes on straight-up killing sprees, just to get
Spider-man's attention, and really, because he just feels like it. He murders
one of Peter Parker's classmates, and he can shape-shift his arms into cutting
weapons, slicing and impaling the bodies of innocent bystanders on the street and
in diners. He attacks a little kid and a baby in a bathtub, and he kills people
through computer screens, and he constantly fantasizes about mutilating
Peter Parker. So really, as intense as Venom is, Carnage is way more extreme, and
again, there's just no way this would work in anything less than an R
rating. So if Sony really plans to go in this direction with a darker, more adult
superhero movie universe separate from the family-friendly MCU, they're really
right to set the tone early with this Venom movie. It really is the best way to
be true to what fans love from the comics. Do you think a movie version of
Venom that will never cross paths with Iron Man or Captain America or Hulk or
for that matter, Daredevil or Punisher, is worth its own movie universe if that
universe gets to be dark, adult and violent? And do you think Venom should
use this R rating for more extreme violence? Or to explore that kind of
psychological trauma stuff on a level that younger audiences just might not
appreciate? Let me know what you think in the comments down below and share this
video on Twitter. You can tweet your thoughts directly to me (@eavoss) or to
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page. Big thanks to our patron Kelly Hopper. Thanks for watching, and... ugh. I just
thought about the kiss again... god, I can't unsee it!