Venom: 10 Mistakes Sony Must Avoid With The Spider-Man Spin-Off
7. An Unsympathetic Lead
If Sony is committed to telling the tale of Eddie Brock, they need to tell it right, focusing on the tragic aspects of the character and keeping the audience on side when he becomes a murderous anti-hero with hefty fangs.
In the comic books, Brock is an ambitious reporter whose life spirals out of control after one bad call results in his dismissal from fictional newspaper The Daily Globe.
His marriage collapses, he loses touch with his father and succumbs to depression - it's a gut-wrenching backstory, one which almost has us rooting for Brock when the symbiote transforms him into a walking horror show.
This certainly wasn't the case in Spider-Man 3, which depicted Brock as a sneering weasel who deserved to be served his P45 by J. Jonah Jameson. Sympathy for the devil simply wasn't an option for the audience.
The Tom Hardy version of Venom needs to play an emotional tug of war with viewers, allowing us to remain on his side while he does horrible things to people who mostly deserve it - not unlike Walter White in Breaking Bad.