First 'Venom' Featurette Released

The next stop on the comic book movie train is Venom, the pivotal first Spider-Man spinoff that represents Sony's biggest hope for an entire "Sony's Universe of Marvel Characters" franchise. New trailers and TV spots for Venom have been dropping left and right as release day edges closer; today we have a new Venom featurette to share.

Watch the video above, and we'll discuss below!

This latest Venom featurette showcases what the filmmakers believe will set this movie apart - and those distinctions boil down to two basic factors:

1. The talent of Tom Hardy.
2. The Jekyll / Hyde duality and fun of he Venom character.

Both of those factors could actually be combined into one, as the featurette makes it undeniably clear that Hardy had a major hand in creating the versions of both Eddie Brock and Venom that we will see onscreen. Half of Venom's fun could be simply watching Hardy create scenes where he was running around talking to himself in two voices, which weirdly has great meta-meaning for the Venom character as a metaphor for real-life psychosis.

As you can see above, the final big promotional push for Venom is now fully underway, with new footage, posters, and images being released almost everyday. The hype for the film is too real, with the current projections pointing to Venom having a record-breaking box office opening for the month of October. Even though the movie has been confirmed for a tamer PG-13 rating, it seems there's a lot of interest from both hardcore Marvel Comics fans and the wider mainstream audience. Director Ruben Fleischer has promised that the rating will not prevent Venom from being disturbingly dark and violent - an edge that could help carry the film on strong word of mouth.

For the hardcore fans, Venom will contain plenty of big Marvel Comics Easter eggs - despite not being connected to the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. There are already hints that the film will set up some big things for a possible sequel - perhaps even revealing fan-favorite villain, Carnage. By any early measure, Sony has done an admirable job creating hype and interest around Venom - which could ultimately result in some significant returns.

Synopsis: "Following a scandal, journalist Eddie Brock attempts to revive his career by investigating the Life Foundation, but comes into contact with an alien symbiote that bonds with Brock, giving him superpowers as long as they share the same body."

Venom will be in theaters on October 5th.