I’ve never been a fan of Venom in the comic books; deranged alien goop that becomes a living suit of danger and rage for its wearer was always just a little too high-concept for me.
And it really didn’t work when it was forced into (and dumbed down for) the non-sensical slop that Sony Pictures had the nerve to call Spider-Man 3.
But the folks at Sony think it’s good idea to give Venom his own movie, and you can read comments from the guys who are writing it right here.
(At least it sounds like Spider-Man 4 will be back on the right track.)
I’m going to give a play by play of Reese’s comments.
“Obviously, with a character like Venom there’s a ton of stuff to draw from,”
No, there is not. There are two origins that most people would care about, the regular Marvel Universe magic space suit from the Secret Wars and the much more sensible Ultimate Universe origin. The Ultimate origin is I think the best treatment of the suit in that it was developed as a weapon for the Super Soldier program but has some glitches that cause the host to lose control, bringing out Venom. Which, if Marvel was smart, they would take back this property and use with their own movies. I think Sony just wants to milk this franchise for as much as they can.
“Then they had specific rules about the villain and the backstory and stuff like that, so there were certain things they wanted us… certain parameters they gave us.”
Parameters? What’s wrong with source material? I’m guessing the parameters were: no eating brains, this is going to be a PG movie, don’t make him too scary, he can’t kill, put some flames on his costume. He needs to just be a hero, not a psychopath bent on protecting the innocent. Make sure the characters we have make sellable toys, wisecracking sidekick etc…
“But largely we pitched them something and they liked it but they had changes, so we worked on the outline for a long time and then we wrote the script. So with Marvel and Sony and us it’s definitely very, very collaborative.”
See above for “changes.” Marvel doesn’t care just as long as they get their cut. But if it was their movie, they would care a lot because it would be their butt on the line if it fails.
One last thing that was mentioned in the article that I think most people would just look over but it bugs me. The mention of “their take on the character” This has been a long complaint of mine with any comic book movie. It seems every director or writer wants to make the project their own as if to say, “I can make this better than the source material” instead of, “I’m going to respect the source material and still make a good movie.” Bryan Singer did the former with X1 and X2, while Ratner did the latter with X3. Then Singer lost his mind with Superman Returns, but that is another discussion all together.
Thanks for dropping by, Aaron. Your wisdom is always welcomed and appreciated. I haven’t read the Ultimate Spider-Man stuff, but I need to. I like that take on Venom. (And your “flames on the costume” comment = genius.) And I agree with you yet again on your assessment of “honor the source material.” I didn’t want Bryan Singer’s Superman. I just wanted Superman. And hopefully we’ll get him someday.