‘Venom’ Trailer Offers First Look at Riot

Sony Pictures today released a new trailer for its new Marvel movie Venom, starring Tom Hardy as the Spider-Man villain turned anti-hero. The trailer revealed the first look at the film’s antagonist Riot, a symbiote bonded to Dr. Carlton Drake played by Riz Ahmed.

The trailer shows Drake standing in front of a room full of what are presumably employees of his Life Foundation. The symbiote emerges and the grey monster forms large, ax-like arms and swipes at the employees.

Here’s a look:

In the Marvel Comics universe, Riot first appeared in the series Venom: Lethal Protector, the primary inspiration for the plot of the Venom movie. He was one of five symbiotes created by the Life Foundation to police their new Utopia. Riot did not bond to Drake in the comics, but to one of the Life Foundation’s top security guards, Trevor Cole. Cole and most of the other guards bonded to the symbiotes were later murdered by one of their own, Donna Diego who bonded to the symbiote called Scream when she decided that symbiotes are innately evil.

Venom stars Hardy as Eddie Brock, the original Venom from the Marvel Comics Universe. The film is directed by Ruben Fleischer. It is the first installment of Sony’s Marvel Universe, a shared cinematic universe that will also include other movies about supporting Spider-Man characters such as Silver and Black, a movie featuring Silver Sable and Black Cat, the Morbius movie, and Nightwatch.

In addition to Hardy and Ahmed, the film also stars Michelle Williams as playing Anne Weying, Eddie Brock’s wife who later becomes She-Venom. The villain Carnage was also rumored for the film but has not been confirmed.

The new trailer seems to suggest that the movie will follow the general premise of Venom: Lethal Protector pretty closely, with the Life Foundation studying symbiotes nominally with good intentions only for Drake’s hubris to lead to the group’s downfall by their own creations, leaving Venom to clean up the mess.

Are you excited about the Venom movie? Do you think Tom Hardy is going to make a great Eddie Brock? What do you think of Riot as the film’s villain? Let us know in the comments!

Venom opens in theaters on October 5th.