Venom's trailer might've released to a frosty reception, with the Symbiote itself nowhere to be seen, but it was far from the disaster fans had deemed it to be right off the bat.
Sony haven't been able to boast a good track record when it comes to the superhero genre for well over a decade now, but they are due a comeback. Relinquishing control of the Spidey license to Marvel was a good first step, and with Venom, they have the potential to make the Spidey license their own.
It's all come out of nowhere, granted, but the film (set to release this October), boasts a formidable cast. Tom Hardy has all the tools to make this Eddie Brock one to remember, Michelle Williams elevates the whole production altogether just by being in it, and Riz Ahmed's anonymous antagonist is sure to lend the film an edge as well.
The odds are very much stacked against it, but if you scratch beneath the surface, there might actually be a fair few reasons to love Sony’s superhero horror - even if it hasn’t quite managed to win over everyone just yet.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
