10 Comic Book Movies Critics & Audiences Couldn't Agree On
5. Venom
Alongside working with Marvel Studios, essentially sharing the rights to Spider-Man, Sony has been busy building its own shared universe. Originally tagged with the ridiculous title of the Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters, the franchise has since been simplified to just Sony’s Spider-Man Universe.
The flagship property, for the moment at least, is Venom. There have so far been just three movies released under the SSU banner, with two of them following Tom Hardy’s symbiote. Both the character in the comics and the actor himself are incredibly popular, which could have led to a smash hit. However, the critic consensus was that Tom Hardy was the lone bright light in the movie that earned a score of just 30%.
Audiences couldn’t have disagreed more, and just seemed to love seeing Venom and Eddie Brock brought to life in a way that couldn’t have been further from Topher Grace’s woeful attempt in Spider-Man 3. The audience score of 80% speaks for itself, and the same could be said about the sequel.
Though Let There Be Carnage received a markedly improved but still rotten score of 57% from critics, audiences stayed relatively consistent with an 84% rating. This seems to be a winning formula for Sony, and the smart money says there will be another huge divide when the third installment eventually releases.