Should Venom be "creepier" in his solo film?

 



I say yes, and so does Venom creator Todd McFarlane.  I know that my opinion doesn't mean too much, but his does.  I think he should be the first person that whoever ends up doing this film should talk to.  McF, as I like to call him, is concerned with how his character will be brought to his fans on the big screen.  I know that a lot of you are saying that he has already been brought to the big screen.  This is true, and I don't want to take anything away from Topher Grace, but in his own film I think Venom should be bigger and badder.  In an interview found on newarama.com, McF talks about the complexities of giving a villain like Venom his own film.  I will give you some of the what was said:

"When I created him, he was a monster first, then a guy underneath," said Todd McFarlane, the artist behind Venom's first appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #299. "He should be creepier than what he was in Spider-Man 3."

"I always thought Spider-Man was a skinny runt of a guy, and his villains felt more formidable if they were physically more superior," McFarlane explained, saying that when he first drew Venom, he didn't even know there was supposed to be a guy inside the suit. "I didn't realize until afterward that it was Eddie Brock underneath... which is why the proportions are the way they are [in the comics], with the big jaws and the hunching. I pictured him as a creature, and not a human being in a costume."

But even if the new Venom is "creepier," the artist questioned the idea of a villain being the center character of a Spider-Man spin-off. "I'm thinking about how they want to make anti-heroes nowadays," he said, using the Halle Berry Catwoman film as an example. "Those don't work. The reason they're so cool as a bad guy is because they're bad. And as soon as you try to give too much humanity to them, then you go, no! Now they're not as good as a bad guy because you're trying to redeem them."

He said that although "smart people can make things happen in other ways," he doesn't think Venom can make an audience care about him if he's still a villain. McFarlane said that Don Corleone and the Sopranos are examples of characters who were able to entice viewer sympathy despite their villainy, "but they were human. Can you bring that mentality to Venom and make it work? Or do you make him all bad?

"You're trying to give something to people when they leave. I don't know if you can have a movie about a guy who goes out there and maims everybody and wins all the time," he said. "I don't know what their mindset is and how they can get there other than adding too much niceness to him, but we'll see."

I think that, form a comic geeks standpoint, a balls to the walls Venom movie would be great.  He is one of the most unrelenting villains, next to Carnage, in comic book history.  I would love to see a rated R Venom film.  I feel that his character is more suited to an adult audience.  Unfortunately, all the studios care about is money, and they know that kids (or the kids parents) spend the most money at the movies.  I think they are going to go for the PG to PG-13 range.  I think they should wait until the X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie hits until they make any decisions.  That movie will test the boundaries on violence in a comic book movie.  I wish that I was in control of the filming of this movie.  I would not hold back.  No character in the movie would be safe.  Oh well, one can dream.

Well fellow soldiers, I am really excited to find out what you think about this.  I will keep you posted on anything that develops on this.  Until then, let me know what you think.

McMurphy (should be potential director of the Venom movie) Out!