We still don’t know if Sony’s upcoming Venom movie will feature Spider-Man or not, but now it’s seeming like we’re not even sure which Venom will take the lead in the spin-off. Mad Max: Fury Road star Tom Hary is playing the main character, but new set photos suggest that the film’s version of Eddie Brock is going to be different from the original Marvel Comics character.
A Tom Hardy fan account posted a series of set photos over the weekend, and like all the Venom set photos we’ve seen so far, they’re not very good, as they’re fairly blurry and uninteresting. That said, the first picture, a pretty bad selfie of Hardy, is notable only because we can see him wearing what looks like some type of tactical military costume. In the comics, Eddie Brock, Venom’s host is a disgraced newspaper photographer, so it’s a little strange that he’d be wearing tactical gear.
Sony has confirmed that Hardy is playing Eddie Brock and not some other character in Venom, but it increasingly looks like the film is going to borrow heavily from other versions of the Venom character. In November, the film’s Twitter account posted a mirror selfie of Hardy, and fans spotted a coat with an American flag patch in the reflection. That patch, combined with the new picture of Hardy in tactical gear, seems to suggest that Venom might use Flash Thompson’s backstory.
Flash first appeared in Marvel comics as Peter Parker’s high school bully and eventual army veteran, but in more recent years he’s become a host to the Venom symbiote. As “Agent Venom,” Flash is more of a good guy, using his powers to complete government-sanctioned missions.
It’s possible that Hardy’s Venom has nothing to do with this version of the character (maybe Eddie Brock is just doing warzone photography or something else that requires tactical gear), but Agent Venom would make for a different kind of superhero movie, which is what Sony has promised. Don’t be too surprised if the army plays some sort of role in Venom.
Venom is slated for an October 2018 release date.
