Venom Begins Production; Tom Hardy Reportedly Set For Motion Capture Performance
by Erik Amaya
With less than a year until its release, Sony is moving forward with Venom at surprising speed. The production started a Twitter account last week and early this morning posted this image of their first day at work:
Day 1. #Venom pic.twitter.com/ftkf9pEWn3
— Venom Movie (@VenomMovie) October 24, 2017
A glance at the thread underneath the picture reveals as lot of mixed opinions about the film. Though a Spider-Man spinoff, the webslinger will be absent from the film entirely. Instead, the project will focus on Tom Hardy as a human who merges with an alien symbiote and, presumably, learns to be an anti-hero.
In the comics, the first Venom, Eddie Brock shared the symbiote’s hatred of Peter Parker, making the pair a good team. But without Parker as the focus of their attention, you have to wonder why man and creature would become allies. Maybe Hardy’s character is unwilling? The question left a lot of commenters puzzled and even a few claiming the film is unwanted.
Of course, they forget the desires of Sony are paramount above all else.
Meanwhile, Andy Serkis tells Yahoo UK (via Comicbook.com) that Hardy will do a motion capture performance as Venom. Serkis, who is not involved with Venom, pointed to Hardy as an example of motion capture performances becoming no different from wearing a costume. He also used Mark Rylance from The BFG and fellow Planet of the Apes actors Steve Zahn and Karin Konoval as further examples. As motion capture’s chief advocate, Serkis added, “it just needs awarding bodies to understand that.”
Venom, which also stars Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed and Jenny Slate, is set for release on October 5th, 2018.