‘Venom’ Director Reveals Tom Hardy’s Approach

Taking on the role of Venom meant also taking on the part of Eddie Brock for Tom Hardy, which Venom movie director Ruben Fleischer was blown away by on set.

Speaking to ComicBook.com at San Diego Comic Con, Fleischer opened up about what he was hoping to get out of Hardy while crafting the first Venom film (which he hopes will lead to many more).

“As you know, as a fan of the character, Eddie Brock and Venom is a unique character within the universe because it’s not just a singular experience,” Fleischer said. “It’s not like there’s a guy who gets imbued with powers or makes his own suit and the becomes a vigilante or he’s not an alien that comes to earth and has super powers. In our movie, or in the comics, it’s about the union of these two different parts to create a whole.”

As the origin story sounds like it will go, Eddie Brock and Venom will work towards becoming one functioning anti-hero force. “There’s a symbiote and then there’s Eddie Brock,” Fleischer said. “There’s a relationship. That’s what Tom did so amazingly well, was to play these two characters simultaneously. That was, as a director, just exhilarating to watch someone with the capability that he has managed the two characters that he has in his head.”

As for whether or not the film will be rated R to allow for explicit violence remains unclear, despite the Sony Pictures presentation in Hall H featuring an abundant amount of implied violence.

“That’s the plan,” Fleischer said. “It is not the plan, that’s the movie. Our movie wants to honor the comics as close as we can tonally. In the comics, he bites people’s heads off and eats brains. It would be weird to make a movie with Venom if he wasn’t doing that. We tried to honor it as closely as possible. This is definitely a darker, more violent, more vicious Marvel character than I think anyone’s ever seen before.”

The footage shown in Hall H at San Diego Comic Con moments after the interview showcased a terrifying portrayal of the character. The movie does honor his comic book counterpart with sequences seen on the pages of Marvel Comics which see the symbiote emerging from Eddie Brock’s chest to have a conversation face to face. However, it is also seen in his nature of looking down on human enemies, tormenting them with terrifying (yet beautifully animated) lines of dialogue, and biting their heads right off.

“We really want to honor the comics and the character from the comics and I feel like we did a really good job,” Fleischer said.

It’s worth mentioning; the footage did not include any foul language or extreme violence directly on the screen which would warrant an R-rating for the film. Instead, the footage consistently cut before a villain’s head would be removed by the Marvel anti-hero’s giant teeth. Whether or not the bloody aftermath makes its way on to the screen is unknown, for now.

Tom Hardy, however, says it is a film his kids can’t watch just yet.

“Venom is, by far, for me the…coolest Marvel super hero that there is,” Hardy said. “I just like the way he looks first and foremost. Then, also, there’s my son and he’s a massive Venom fan. He was a very strong influence on me as to why I ought to play Venom specifically…So I did something where I bite people’s heads off which my son can’t see.”

Venom is set for release on October 5, 2018.