Despite how financially successful the Venom films have been so far, with Venom: The Last Dance likely to be no exception, the movie version of the character has largely been a missed opportunity. Tom Hardy is 100% committed as the character, and you can tell that he’s invested, but it’s a franchise that is held back by its limitations, some of them outside its control.

Most know the Marvel character as an arch-nemesis of Spider-Man, arguably one of his best, but, in movie form, the character finds itself tied down to Sony’s Spider-Man Universe while the famous web-slinger is shared in a sweetheart deal between Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios. This means that Venom as a cinema property is completely owned by Sony Pictures and, as it stands now, can’t be used in a way that puts him at narrative odds with Spider-Man. The studio instead had to focus on Eddie Brock/Venom as an anti-hero, which isn’t necessarily a bad direction; it just robs the character of his more villainous beginnings, which helped make him one of the greatest comic book villains and characters to grace the pages of Marvel.

Release Date October 25, 2024

Venom’s Origins Are Connected to Spider-Man

Spider-Man first came into contact with an alien symbiote during 1985’s Secret Wars miniseries when his suit was damaged in battle. Spider-Man returns with the new black suit to Earth, soon realizing that it’s an alien lifeform that wants to bond with him, which plays a role in corrupting Spider-Man’s true nature by making his personality unstable.

Eventually, he finds a way to reject the lifeform by using soundwaves from a bell tower at a church to manipulate the alien’s weaknesses. Unbeknownst to our hero, Eddie Brock is at the very same church feeling angry and despondent over his current fate, making him the perfect new host for the symbiote. Now Eddie is known as Venom, and not only does Eddie have a bone to pick with Spider-Man, but so does the alien lifeform he rejected. Because it bonded with the web crawler, it also knows his true identity as Peter Parker, information that is now in the hands of an enhanced Eddie Brock.

There is a road to making a Venom film that Sony ultimately made down the line, but skipping to him being an anti-hero before being able to explore his push and pull with Spider-Man proves to be the first thing that works against Venom’s cinematic arrival. Because both Eddie and the symbiote want revenge against Spider-Man, they become one of his most deadly adversaries, especially since Peter isn’t aware of their existence as they plot against him. In the comics, he first pushes Peter in front of a moving subway and knocks him off a building he’s scaling without activating his spidey sense because, since he once bonded with the symbiote, it doesn’t set off that part of his abilities.

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He begins almost like a stalking and lurking figure, torturing Spider-Man from the shadows, and even goes after his wife, Mary Jane, which is bait for their first real encounter. With all the cards on the table, Spider-Man knows the symbiote has bonded with Eddie Brock. He’s just as strong if not stronger than him, and he’s aware of his true identity, making him a danger to his friends and family, similar to how Norman Osborn’s Green Goblin was before it led to the death of his first girlfriend, Gwen Stacy. Another wrinkle in defeating Venom is that, since the symbiote has completed the bonding process with Brock, it can’t be destroyed without also taking Brock’s life.

A lot of this is effectively explored in the comics and Spider-Man: The Animated Series, which aired on Fox. Despite being tailored to kids, the series did an excellent job of effectively telling the important beats of the story, beginning with Peter getting the symbiote before it eventually comes into contact with Eddie and creating Venom. The Venom arc in the animated series doesn’t run many episodes. However, he does make multiple appearances and provides an example of how important the character is as an adversary to Spider-Man, something the films haven’t been able to exploit, thus diluting a significant part of the character’s backstory and history. The key ingredient missing from those Venom films was the defining nature of his hatred for Spider-Man, even if he does ultimately become an anti-hero down the line. Fans should be able to see those beginning motivations of the character since they’re such an essential element of his origins.

The Venom Movies Also Diluted Another Key Villain

The issue becomes even more problematic with the 2021 film sequel Venom: Let There Be Carnage, which throws the character of Cletus Kasady, aka Carnage (Woody Harrelson), into the mix. Created by David Michelinie and Erik Larsen, the character was first introduced in The Amazing Spider-Man #344 in 1991 as probably one of the most infamous personalities to play host to the symbiote as one of Venom’s offspring.

While Brock bonds with the symbiote in a depressed and despondent state, Kasady raises the stakes as a prolific serial killer, someone already with deadly tendencies, who comes in contact with the alien lifeform while sharing a cell with Eddie Brock after he was captured by Spider-Man. Now known as Carnage, he breaks out of prison and soon becomes a thorn in the side of both Venom and Spider-Man because he is much more violent and dangerous, which leads to a series of horrific murders.

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Both Venom films have been rated PG-13, which is not ideal for the character, but not a huge detriment when looking at the 2018 film. It becomes more egregious upon the arrival of Let There Be Carnage because, by design, the subject matter calls for something much more hardcore than what can be allowed by the PG-13 rating.

The Carnage and his reign of terror that the audience meets in the film is a fraction of what is essayed in his comic book form, which strips the character of what made him a compelling villain. This is someone who was the center of a 14-part crossover in 1993 called Maximum Carnage that was played out across all the Spider-Man titles. Much like Venom, he was a popular villain that compelled fans, while the movie version doesn’t even come close to touching how he came across in the pages of Marvel Comics.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage Needed Spider-Man

Something else missing from his film appearance is Spider-Man himself. In the comic books, Spider-Man soon realized he was no match for the deranged serial killer who had now bonded to become Carnage, leading to an uneasy alliance with Venom. In a bit of a desperate move, the two form a truce to defeat Carnage because, despite Venom’s hatred of Spider-Man, he’s not a true villain in the traditional sense. He only wants to make Spider-Man’s life a living hell, and inflicting that on others is not part of his DNA. If Venom had been allowed to be introduced properly through Spider-Man and the story was developed to ultimately face Carnage, it could’ve been a real way to establish Venom as the anti-hero they want to portray him as in the films. Without the Spider-Man connection, it was just another missed opportunity.

Comic book-to-film adaptations are never going to be perfect. There will be changes from page to screen, mostly because some things work better in the panels of comic books and not on the big screen. Venom’s road to being a hero of sorts in the comic books begins after he kidnaps Spider-Man’s parents, and the two begin to brawl in the process, ultimately resulting in Spider-Man having to save Eddie’s ex-wife Anne Weying (played by Michelle Williams in the films) from a falling Ferris wheel. It’s an act that leads to true peace between the characters and sets him off in a new role as a protector, even leading to them teaming up again during the Maximum Carnage crossover to defeat Cletus and his alien symbiote.

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All of this doesn’t have to be adapted for the screen, but the fact that some of these connections are missing has been a detriment to the character, robbing him of the necessary growth that takes him from a villain to someone comic book readers meet in 1993’s Venom: Lethal Protector story arc.

It’s hard to say when fans will see Venom’s origins on the big screen as they should be. Sony has the rights to the character along with a slew of other Spider-Man characters and villains that they have no intention of giving up. There are talks that Hardy’s take on the character from the movies will eventually meet up with Tom Holland’s Spider-Man in the MCU, and while that could be fun to see, it won’t have the narrative origins that made their rivalry, and ultimately uneasy alliance, so compelling to read on the page. The Venom films may provide a temporary desire to see him come to life on the big screen, but fans aren’t getting him in that format as they should, which has been a real shame. Venom: The Last Dance is releasing in theaters on Oct. 25, 2024.