Venom Co-Writer Roberto Orci Says Symbiote Won't Be Alien

In a new interview with IGN, Venom co-writer Roberto Orci told the site that the alien origins of Venom's symbiotic costume, which mimics the powers and abilities of Spider-Man as well as making him immune to the hero's "spider-sense," will not make it into their version of the screenplay. "Oscorp plays an important part in how our villains get created, obviously, in [The Amazing Spider-Man]," Orci said. "So because Peter becoming Spider-Man came out of that, rather than saying, 'And then this alien came from space,' or whatever, they're doing human-hybrid, weird stuff at Oscorp. That's where Gwen Stacy works anyway as well. So the idea of it representing the good and the bad of science, that it can do great things, but it can also mess you up and do weird things and transform people -- as all science can be used for good or bad. So it's nice to have that organizing principal, but it wasn't like, 'We must keep it at Oscorp.' It flowed naturally from the story development." That's more in line with the way Venom  was handled in the Ultimate Comics universe, but is still likely to raise some hardcore fan hackles.

Asked whether it will be Eddie Brock or Flash Thompson, who is currently Venom in the comic books, the writer dodged the question somewhat. "I think they're ready to have things shaken up," Orci said. "I think we've all seen everything. You've seen everything. You can probably predict the ending of most things even better than a general audience, but a general audience is still pretty good at it. They can see it all coming. So we have to shake it up. You can't just keep telling the same stories every day." It all begins this May in The Amazing Spider-Man 2.