‘Venom’ Confirms Riz Ahmed is Playing Riot

Fans were treated to loads of more details about Sony Pictures’ upcoming Spider-Man spinoff movie, putting the anti-hero into the spotlight for Venom.

But the character his has long been considered one of Spidey’s greatest foes has to have his own villains to fight, and footage screened at San Diego Comic-Con revealed that Riz Ahmed’s character will also be possessed by the symbiote.

Ahmed plays the leader of the Life Foundation, Dr. Carlton Drake, and the footage at the Hall H presentation revealed he’ll take the form of Riot, another symbiote who fights Venom in the comic books.

ComicBook.com’s own Brandon Davis attended the presentation and described the footage featuring Riot:

Riz Ahmed’s character rules that human beings are disposable. Man and sumbiote combined is the future. He tests one on a man who is bent out of shape violently. Eddie is tested later…

Ahmed’s character is proud of his creation. Action scenes flash by…

Venom’s arms turn into giant axes and he wipes out a slew of enemies. More action scenes. Venom fights Ahmed’s symbiote counterpart. Venom threatens to eat a man’s face off of his head who is bothering the woman in the convenience store. When he asks “What the hell are you,” half the face disappears and Eddie and Venom say, “We are Venom.” Then, he eats his head. Eddie emerges and says goodnight to the woman.

Ahmed spoke about his character’s role in the film, teasing how he plays into the story.

“He’s a genius billionaire inventor,” Ahmed said. “Life Foundation…is trying to answer the question of what does the future for humanity look like…He thinks, probably, we’ve got a future in outer space and he comes across the symbiote.”

“We’re definitely planning a huge world with this Venom story and we want to be able to satisfy our own desires and the desires of fans to explore all of the characters in the film,” director Ruben Flesher said.

But apparently Riot won’t be the only villain in the film, as teased by Fleischer.

“There are other villains in the movie too – we’re definitely planning a big world with these characters,” Fleischer said.

It sounds like they were heavily teasing Woody Harrelson’s role in the film, which has been rumored to be the other fan-favorite symbiote Carnage.

We’ll learn more about the film as we get closer to the release date of Venom on October 5th.