‘Venom’ described as a dark superhero movie mixed with a Tom Hardy comedy

The inherent difficulty in making a movie that centers on Venom is that most people probably know Venom as a Spider-Man villain. So here’s a movie where we have Venom as the star of the show, biting off heads and doing all the things that Venom does, but now he’s kinda-sorta the good guy and there’s no Spider-Man to be found. (The film’s San Francisco setting, as opposed to New York, quickly lets the viewer know we shouldn’t be expecting any Spider-Man cameos, let alone even a mention.)

Director Ruben Fleischer, best known for directing the 2009 hit Zombieland (and its upcoming sequel) brings Venom back to the big screen for the first time since Sam Raimi’s effort back in 2007’s Spider-Man 3. (Rami has made it clear he’s not the biggest Venom fan.) Playing both Venom and his human host, Eddie Brock, is Tom Hardy who brings a…let’s call it unpredictability to the role. Here we have Venom, what is ostensibly a darker superhero movie about an alien who bites people’s heads off, but then here’s Hardy, putting on a manic comedy show – at one point jumping into a live lobster tank to start chowing down on lobsters. (As Fleischer says ahead, that was all a Tom Hardy improvisation.)

Ahead, Fleischer takes us through the challenges of making a movie about Venom, the often unpredictability of Tom Hardy’s vision for the character, and why Venom takes its cues from a lot of ’80s buddy comedies, including, surprisingly, the Steve Martin/Lily Tomlin film, All of Me.