Thomas Haden Church is now well and truly entangled in the Spider-Man 3 web. After spending 13 months working on the film, he’s finally ready to start really talking about the experience. Except that he’s not saying all that much – which surely has nothing to do with the poison pellet his Sony overlords will have implanted in his left buttock should he discuss anything really spoileriffic.
“Sam Raimi and I started having really involved sessions about who the guy was," Church told MSN movies while promoting Over The Hedge. "Clearly, it's taken from the fourth issue of Spider-Man, which was when Sandman was introduced and which I now have framed on my wall." He won’t talk any further about the plot, but he does at least mention the name Venom.
"I'm overwhelmed every time I'm around Sam. He's been showing me stuff since the beginning of last summer. 'This is what we are going to be doing in this sequence, this is what Spider-Man is going to be doing and this is what Venom is going to be doing.' It is a massive, massive process."
And he’s been realising quite what he’s gotten himself into. "They gave me a stack of printed out message board entries and it was too much," Church recalls. "We were all sitting around like going through it and it was all like, 'Dude, that picture of Sandman rules! Church is perfect for the part!' It makes me think it's really the biggest superhero franchise." You think?