WHAT WILL A VENOM FILM ACTUALLY LOOK LIKE? EXCITED TO SEE THE FILM IF MADE RIGHT?

For all ya Spider Man loving folks out there, the last time we saw Venom on the big screen, was in 2007’s muddled Spider Man 3, and there was little or no effort on the part of the film-makers to give the symbiote a meaningful origins tale: it simply turned up one day on Earth and decided to try and bond with the wisecracking wall-crawler.

The announcement that Sony is working on a new Venom movie has been viewed with apprehension. If the studio isn’t capable of producing decent Spider-Man movies without Marvel, how can it deliver a worthwhile entry about a title so closely linked to the web-slinger?

There are also numerous unanswered questions about this complex game of inter-studio Mahjong: how can current Spidey Tom Holland appear in the Venom movie, perhaps as the antagonist, if Marvel is not involved? Especially as Sony has proven itself an untrustworthy keeper of the wall-crawler’s flame. The studio could avoid featuring Spidey entirely, of course. But the symbiote’s origins story is inexorably linked to that of Peter Parker – Brock is inspired to become Venom by his hatred for and jealousy towards the superhero – so this would be something of a strange move. In fact, it’s arguable that Venom without Spider-Man represents a rather lukewarm proposition for all but the most hardcore fan of 1993’s Venom: Lethal Protector storyline from the comics.

There’s also the fact that Sony has been trying to get a Venom movie off the ground for the best part of a decade, without any real success. The deal with Marvel was supposed to put an end to this barrel-scraping approach to its rights to Spider-Man and associated characters, while allowing a whole host of classic ‘Spidey’ villains to turn up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Instead, it seems as if Sony wants to let Marvel reinvigorate the character and still wants to spin off the likes of Venom into dubious solo adventures.

This move to reintroduce the character has clearly been inspired by Fox’s success with R-rated solo outings such as Deadpool and Wolverrine. Two antiheroes who offer an alternate take on the classic superhero template – just like Venom.

The alien symbiote even shares a cancer-stricken backstory with Deadpool. But Spidey’s nemesis – at least in his classic Eddie Brock form – has never quite had the offbeat charm of Wade Wilson, nor the grouchy, taciturn charisma of Logan.

The one thing Spider-Man 3 got right about the character is that he’s kind of a jerk. Looking forward to seeing this particular character grazing our cinema screens in the coming future? Or tired of the constant trying of the studios to get us to like this character?