Venom (2018) - Official Trailer Reaction
Not that we should necessarily expect some genius piece of creative story-telling here from 'Venom'. It's a movie mandated by the fact that the character sold some cool, and probably quite cheap toys back in the day...probably in the days when Toys R Us were still going, making the film seem somewhat irrelevant in 2018. This was a film made because Sony thought there was money in expanding the Spider-Man franchise into multiple installments with separate spin-off films. A cinematic universe, as it were. The problem with all bad cinematic universes though is that in order to gain peoples' investment, each film either needs to stand on its own or spin-off directly from a popular and successful film in its own right. Each Avenger has seen greater box office success with the success of the team-up movies because general audiences see them as spin-offs, with Marvel Studios gradually establishing Marvel as the brand as opposed to just The Avengers. One would think that a smart Sony producer would see the value in building up to Venom's solo film: introducing the symbiote in a 'Spider-Man: Homecoming' sequel, and allowing him to branch-off from there. Instead their plan appears to be to make Venom a standalone character, and then if all goes well introduce him again into a 'Spider-Man: Homecoming' sequel.
Of course, the funny thing about that is that 'Venom' is intended to be an R-rated film, not aiming at the kids (supposedly) buying the Venom toys, and not even aiming at the general Spider-Man audience who went to guy and see 'Homecoming' last year. No, instead 'Venom' seeks to find its appeal in a teen/young adult audience who want to see "badass" Spider-Man in a sort-of horror movie, sort-of thriller movie, presumably with swearing and violence in there too. Sony expects to capitalise on the kid-friendly Spider-Man brand whilst also capitalising on the teen/adult-oriented 'Deadpool' audience who want to go and see R-rated superhero films. In that case though...where's any of that in this new trailer? Ah, I understand why: so they can put it in front of screenings of Marvel Studios' 'Avengers: Infinity War', in the same way that the teaser was put up in time for Marvel Studios' 'Black Panther'. There is no red-band trailer to showcase the violence or...whatever it is that the studio thinks will make it an R because they want to gain interest from the family audience, or perhaps from the teens in the broad demographic.
Honestly, there are only two reasons I can see people wanting to see this movie: they want to see a really good film featuring Venom, or they want to see more Tom Hardy. You can't possibly hope to satisfy the first bracket because there was nothing in this project that remotely suggested a good film, let alone a film audiences have to watch to keep up-to-date with the Spidey franchise. As for the Tom Hardy fans...well, 'Mad Max: Fury Road' didn't make a huge amount of money, and I've no doubt that 'Venom' has cost a lot more than it really should.
The trailer's so devoid of anything interesting, stylistically or otherwise, that it actually uses the exact same trailer music as 'Avengers: Infinity War'. Oh, and the movie's being scored by 'Black Panther''s Ludwig Goransson, presumably because that movie was a huge $1.3 billion hit. I doubt 'Venom' will get anywhere near that number.
The trailer teases an interesting plot with Riz Ahmed's villain character testing the symbiotes on different subjects, possibly creating different kinds of symbiote creatures akin to Venom. Rumour is that Woody Harrelson's going to be playing Carnage in the movie, but there's also rumours suggesting that we won't actually see Venom in-full until the very end of the film. Tom Hardy has neatly dodged those rumours without actually denying them, but this official trailer doesn't give me any faith that this isn't the case. Perhaps Carnage is a post-credits tease, and perhaps the Venom reveal at the end of this trailer is ten minutes from the end of the film. Heck, given how terrible Sony have been with their trailers in the past, its entirely possible that that shot is the very last frame of the film. Regardless of the interesting ideas on display, its difficult to find enthusiasm for a project that's so cynical and mandated that it lacks any kind of the creative and inventive spark most of the Marvel Studios and DC films contain. Also, the official poster looks like over-photoshopped shite.
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