The Director of VENOM on Why There's No White Spider Logo on Venom's Chest

One of the most iconic elements of the Marvel character Venom is the white spider logo on his chest. Well, as you’ve seen in the trailers for the new Venom film, that spider logo is nowhere to be seen. Regardless of that, I do like the character design they ended up using in the movie.

If you are wondering why the white spider logo wasn’t used, director Ruben Fleischer explains that Venom is a story that is isolated from the other Marvel heroes, and they wanted to remove the logo as a way to show that the movie and character stands on its own. He goes on to tell CB:

"The most challenging thing, obviously, was to figure out what to put on his chest to replace the spider since we couldn't use the spider in our film. We went through a million iterations before we landed on the sort of pattern of veins that he has in the movie."

The director goes on to explain that he just wanted the film to be as true to the comics as possible, regardless of the logo removal, saying:

"For me I was always just driven by the comics, just wanted to be as true as possible. In arriving at the design of him I worked closely with a 3D modeler, and we had tons of references from the comics that I pulled panels to get his posture, his scale, his size, his mass, and then obviously the iconic mouth, and eyes, and tongue. That was super important."

I personally wondered if there were any legal issues with the use of the logo since Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures are sharing Spider-Man. The director addressed that, saying:

"There was a lot of legal considerations, but the most important thing was more creative which was if Spider-Man's not gonna be in the movie, and his origin is not from Spider-Man, then logically it doesn't make any sense that he would have a spider. So, as soon as we knew that Venom didn't originate from Spider-Man in our version of the movie, then we had to figure out something else to put in the spider's place."

Yeah, the more they talk about Venom being completely disconnected from the MCU, the more I’m convinced that we won’t be seeing Spider-Man and Venom meet up on the big screen anytime soon. It’s very clear that these are two separate universes. Even if Sony does eventually want to play in the MCU, I don’t think it would work properly with all these changes to the character. But Fleischer still hopes it will happen:

"I will say I think Tom Holland is a fantastic Spider-Man. I really loved [Spider-Man: Homecoming], I'm really excited for the next one. I'm friends with Jon Watts and I've met Tom Holland and I know that he and Hardy are excited to go toe to toe so that would be a version I personally would be very excited about."

What do you think about Venom’s logo not being used in the film? Would you want to see Venom and Spider-Man in a crossover film even though the origin of the character has been completely changed?

Venom hits theaters on October 5, 2018.