Put away your Bane masks — Tom Hardy’s back in the comic book arena, and this time he’s in Marvel’s camp. He’s stepping into the black-alien-goo costume of Venom, the sometimes Spider-Man villain who’s finally getting his own spin-off from Sony. The character is often depicted as an anti-hero in his own right, which is the angle that Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer is pursuing.
The first Venom trailer has just crashed in, showing off an entirely different take on Eddie Brock to Topher Grace’s angsty Peter Parker-rivalling photographer in Spider-Man 3. This being Hardy, the new Brock is beefy, burly, and bloody angry.
The teaser doesn’t give much away for now. We catch a glimpse of Riz Ahmed as Dr. Carlton Drake and Michelle Williams as Anne Weying (Brock’s ex-wife, and later She-Venom, in the comics), while Hardy caps the whole thing off with an intense scream as black veins work their way up his neck. We also see the aftermath of the Venom symbiote's arrival on Earth, and there’s a quick shot of the pulsating black blob in action.
There’s nothing of the full Venom suit yet, and no glimpse of Tom Holland's Spider-Man who’s unlikely to show up here, but with shooting wrapped we can expect to see more in the next trailer. Venom will invade UK cinemas on 5 October.
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