Tom Hardy and a security dog stole the show at ‘Venom’ premiere

For a movie about an out-of-work reporter who bonds with a human-eating alien, the Venom premiere had some surprisingly endearing moments.

Tom Hardy spent a long time greeting fans Monday at the Regency Village Theater in Westwood, signing autographs, posing for pictures and chugging Red Bull on the black carpet (getting through a comic book movie premiere requires energy).

But it was the final moments before Hardy entered the theater that gave the star perhaps his biggest smile of the night, when he stopped to shake the paw of the event’s real hero — a hard-working security dog.