Venom

Venom is a 2018 American superhero film featuring the Marvel Comics character of the same name, produced by Columbia Pictures in association with Marvel Entertainment,[5] Tencent Pictures, Arad Productions, Matt Tolmach Productions and Pascal Pictures and distributed by Sony Pictures. . The first film in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (SSU), it was directed by Ruben Fleischer from a screenplay by Jeff Pinkner, Scott Rosenberg and Kelly Marcel. It stars Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed, Scott Hayes and Reid Scott as well as Eddie Brock and Tom Hardy as Venom. In the film, struggling journalist Eddie gains superpowers after becoming host to an alien symbiote, Venom, whose species plans to invade Earth.
After Venom’s appearance in Spider-Man 3 (2007), Sony attempted to produce a spin-off film based on the character but it could not go ahead due to problems with Sony’s ongoing Spider-Man franchise. In March 2016, work began on a new version that would begin a new shared universe featuring non-Spider-Man Marvel characters that the studio had the film rights to. Sony also intended for Venom to share the world of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), but ultimately moved the film away from Spider-Man. In March 2017, Rosenberg and Pinkner were set to write, with Fleischer and Hardy added in May. Filming took place from October 2017 to January 2018 in Atlanta, New York City, and San Francisco. The film was initially inspired by the comic book miniseries Venom: Lethal Protector (1993) and the story arc “Planet of the Symbiotes” (1995). Ludwig Göransson was hired to compose the film’s score, marking his second Marvel film after Black Panther (2018).
Venom premiered at the Regency Village Theater on October 1, 2018, and was released in theaters in the United States on October 5. Despite being received negatively by critics, the film became the seventh-highest-grossing film of 2018 worldwide with over $856 million and set several box office records for an October release. A sequel, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, was released on October 1, 2021, and the third Venom film is scheduled for release on November 8, 2024.

Details

While exploring space for new habitable worlds, a probe belonging to the Bio-Engineering Corporation Life Foundation discovers a comet covered in symbiotic lifeforms. The probe returns to Earth with four samples, but one escapes and the ship crashes in Malaysia. The Life Foundation recovers the remaining three and takes them to their research facility in San Francisco, where they discover that the symbots cannot survive without an oxygen-breathing host, which often fatally rejects the symbiosis. Investigative journalist Eddie Brock read about this humanitarian trial in a classified document in the possession of his fiancee Ann Weing, an attorney preparing a case defense for the Life Foundation. Eddie confronts Life Foundation CEO Carlton Drake about the lawsuit, causing Eddie and Anne to lose their jobs. As a result, Ann ends their relationship.
Six months later, Drake’s symbiosis trials are close to success, though one of his symbiotes dies due to carelessness. Dora skirts Eddie, one of Drake’s scientists, who disagrees with his methods and wants to expose him. He helps Eddie break into the research facility to look for evidence, and he learns that someone he knows, a homeless woman named Maria, is one of the test subjects. Eddie tries to rescue Maria, but the symbiote transferred into her body without her realizing it leaves her for dead. Eddie escapes and soon begins exhibiting strange symptoms. He reaches out to Annie for help and her new boyfriend Dr. Dan Lewis invented the symbiote to test Eddie. Drake exposes the skirt to the remaining captive symbiote, killing them both. This leaves the symbiote inside the AD as the only known living specimen.
Drake sends mercenaries to retrieve the symbiote from Eddie, but it manifests as a monstrous creature around his body that fights off the attackers. It later introduces itself to Eddie as Venom and explains that Comet is looking for planets where the symbiotes can take over and devour the inhabitants. Venom offers to spare Eddie if he helps the symbiotes achieve their goals, and Eddie uses the superhuman traits the symbiote imbues him with. Eddie breaks into his old workplace to provide evidence of Drake’s crimes but is surrounded by SWAT officers. Anne sees him transform to escape and takes Eddie to Louise’s office, where they explain that the symbiote is rotting Eddie’s internal organs. Eddie notes that the symbiote has two weaknesses: high-pitched noise and fire. Although Venom claims that the organ damage can be reversed, Annie uses an MRI machine to separate him from Eddie, who is then captured by Drake’s men.
Meanwhile, the fourth symbiote, Riot, makes his way from Malaysia to San Francisco by jumping from body to body. This bonds with Drake, who agrees to collect the rest of the symbiotes in Riot’s Life Foundation space probe and bring them to Earth. Annie reluctantly bonds with Venom through a dog so they can free Eddie. When Eddie and Venom bond again, the latter promises to help save Earth from his kind by interacting with Eddie and tries to stop Riot and Drake with Ann’s help. Venom damages the probe in flight, causing it to explode and kill both Riot and Drake. After the incident, Eddie returns to journalism, while Anne believes that after this Eddie is no longer tied to Venom, and Venom also dies in the explosion. However, the pair secretly bond and set out to save San Francisco by killing criminals.
In a mid-credits scene, Eddie is invited to interview incarcerated serial killer Cletus Cassady, who promises “murder” while on the run.

Cast and characters

Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock/Venom:
An investigative journalist who becomes host to Venom, an alien symbiote that imbues him with superhuman powers. Director Ruben Fleischer said that unlike a werewolf or Jekyll and Hyde, the relationship between Eddie and the symbiote is a “hybrid”, where the two characters share a body and work together. Hardy was drawn to the duo and compared the pair to the animated characters Ren and Stimpy. Hardy gave Eddie an “American accent” while using a “James Brown lounge lizard”-voice for Venom, which was later “revised to sound more ominous”. Hardy calls Eddie an antihero who will “do whatever it takes” to achieve a goal. Brad Venable provides additional voiceover for Venom’s sounds of pain and disgust, and his voice combines with Hardy’s for some dialogue, such as “We are Venom”.
Michelle Williams as Anne Weing:
An attorney and Eddie’s ex-fiancée. Williams was excited about the possibility of her character becoming She-Venom in the future, as in the comics, and Fleischer thought it would be fun to give fans an Easter egg by briefly hosting the character during a scene. My graduation. This was kept a secret until the film’s release, and Fleischer hoped that the positive reaction to the appearance would lead to more She-Venom in future Venom films or even a standalone She-Venom film. Anne’s line “I love you, but I love myself more” is added by Williams as a reference to the MeToo movement.
Riz Ahmed as Carlton Drake/Riot:
A genius inventor and leader of the Life Foundation experiments with symbots. Ahmed explains that Drake is trying to save humanity’s future when he discovers the symbiote, with Fleischer adding that Drake has a positive goal but a “moral ambiguity” that leads him to test his science on other people. Drake eventually bonds with another symbiote known as Riot, which Fleischer describes as a “body-hopper”.
Scott Haze as Roland Treece: Drake’s head of security.
Reed Scott as Dan Lewis: Anne’s new boyfriend, a doctor who tries to help Eddie.
Additionally, Jenny Slate portrays Life Foundation scientist Dora Skart, Melora Walters plays Maria, a homeless woman who briefly hosts Venom, and Chris O’Hara appears as astronaut John Jameson, who briefly leads the riot. Also appearing are Sam Medina as a thug who encounters Venom, Peggy Lu as convenience store owner Mrs. Chen, Michelle Lee as a Malaysian EMT who briefly hosts the riot, Sope Aluko and Wayne Pere as Life Foundation scientists, Scott Deckert as Eddie’s obnoxious neighbor, Emilio Rivera as a security guard, Eddie’s friend, and Ron Cephas Jones, as Eddie’s boss. Woody Harrelson plays Cletus Cassady in the mid-credits scene, while Stan Lee has a cameo as a dog-walker talking to Eddie. A clip from the animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), starring Shamik Moore as Miles Morales and Peter B. Featuring Jake Johnson as Parker, included after the credits

Box Office

Venom grossed $213.5 million in the United States and Canada and $642.5 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $856.1 million. With a production budget of between $100–116 million, Deadline Hollywood reported that the film needed to gross around $450 million to break even,[3] and later calculated a net profit of $246.9 million when factoring in all costs and revenues. The sixth-highest-grossing release of 2018.[139]
In the United States and Canada, Venom was initially projected to gross $60–70 million in its opening weekend. It earned $10 million from Thursday night previews, the most for an October release (beating Paranormal Activity 3’s $8 million in 2011). After making $32.7 million on its first day, weekend estimates were raised to $80 million. It grossed $80.3 million, the best October opening weekend ever (beating Gravity’s $55.8 million in 2013), as well as the seventh-best opening for a Sony film. The film grossed $9.6 million on Columbus Day, setting the record for the best Monday gross in October, again topping Gravity. The film remained in first place the following weekend, dropping 55% to $35.7 million. It finished in third place in its third and fourth weekend behind Halloween and A Star Is Born. With more films releasing in the fifth and sixth weekends, Venom dropped to sixth and eighth, respectively, with the latter film grossing over $200 million.
Worldwide, the film was expected to debut to $160-175 million, with $100-110 million from 58 territories outside the United States and Canada. It over-performed its $205.5 million global opening weekend with $125.2 million from foreign territories, the highest ever for October. It ranked first among South Korea ($16.4 million in its five-day debut), Russia ($13.6 million), the United Kingdom ($10.5 million) and Mexico ($10.2 million, a country with the best opening for a Sony film). The opening included $15.4 million from IMAX, October and Sony’s biggest opening in the format; Of that, $7 million was from overseas IMAX screens, the largest overseas IMAX debut. Venom was the top film worldwide for its second and third weekends. In the second, the film opened in France ($6.7 million), Vietnam ($3 million), and Thailand ($2.2 million) and was number one in 51 others, including Brazil, down just 6% from its opening weekend. [146] The film was number one in 30 markets in its third weekend. [147] It opened in Japan in first place with $5.2 million in its fifth weekend, taking its worldwide total to $541.6 million. The film’s top foreign markets prior to its release in China were Russia ($31.6 million), South Korea ($30.1 million), United Kingdom ($25.5 million), Mexico ($23.8 million), and France/Brazil ($18.3 million tied) ) [148]
The film crossed $600 million and again became number one worldwide after opening with $111 million in China. It was Sony’s biggest opening in China, the second biggest for a superhero film after Avengers: Infinity War and the fifth biggest for any film imported into the country. Friday brought in $34.9 million, the biggest opening day for a single Marvel film. 553 IMAX screens domestically topped $10 million, the biggest November opening for the format in China and the eighth biggest for any month. The film closed its second weekend behind Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, which became number one overall, topping China with $51.2 million, the best second weekend for a superhero film in the country. After this “tremendous” performance in China, the film crossed $800 million the following weekend with $21.3 million from 63 markets, becoming the second-biggest superhero origin film behind Black Panther to $822.5 million. In early December and after receiving an extension for the film’s release in China, Mendelsohn wrote that the film had grossed an “insane” $262 million in China and felt that it had surpassed other films such as Crazy Rich Asians in the market. with some “camp classic ‘so bad it’s good’ styling” to be more “weird/weird” that those other films didn’t have.

About Venom