10 Potentially Great Movies Ruined By One Character

5. Venom - Spider-Man 3

There's an old idiom which perfectly sums up a recurring problem with a lot of big blockbuster comic book adaptations, when directors over-egg the pudding. Sometimes this can amount to focusing too much on style and missing out on the substance, at other times it can mean throwing too many characters and disparate narratives at the audience so that they fail to truly engage with any one aspect. The latter is without a doubt the case for Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3, a film so chock full of villains that none of them get the screen time - or character development - they truly deserve. The worst offender in the movie is one few readers are likely to disagree with: Venom. Hands down the most popular villain in the Spider-Man universe, his inclusion should have been a guarantee for success - instead, it was a cause for outrage in the fan community and for good reason. Woefully underused, Venom in Spider-Man 3 feels as if he was rushed into production (which may well be the case) and given little time to develop as a character. This shoehorned approach was made worse by the miscasting of Topher Grace in the role. Sam Raimi has stated that he wasn't interested in featuring Venom, which might go some way to explaining why he comes across as something of an afterthought - perhaps if he'd been given the degree of attention of, say, Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight, Spider-Man 3 would've turned out to be an entirely different movie.