Originally published November 20, 2018. Updated November 29, 2022.
Tom Jolliffe takes a look at the surprising worldwide commercial success of Venom…
Earlier in the year the first trailer for Venom dropped. It looked pretty awful, not least about 15 years out of date (particularly the initial trailer’s CGI polish). A few more trailers followed and fanfare seemed fairly low. Then came the reviews.
The critics demolished the film. It was largely savaged, with only Tom Hardy seeming to be a redeeming feature, battling tired ideas, poor visuals and a film lacking in the craft, precision and delivery of the MCU films. The box office predictions were always expected to be solid, but analysts were cautious because of the critical mauling. It’s a ready made excuse. It wouldn’t have been the first time, nor the last, that filmmakers and movie stars aimed vitriol toward a site like Rotten Tomatoes for wrecking their chances of box office success (rather than taking responsibility say for tired ideas, poor quality control or wildly overestimating the demand for their particular film). People can make a film as Earth shatteringly shit as Gotti (with a now-video premiere specialist in John Travolta), and then blame the critics because three people turn up to see it in theatres. No, actually, no one wanted a Gotti film, and certainly not one that was dreadful.
Venom defied critical consensus and made bank. Serious bank. The Greatest Showman last year had pretty mediocre reviews but quickly became ‘THE’ pop culture film of the year. We’re still hearing the songs now. Venom marked a massive triumph for Sony, with a Marvel character deemed surplus by Disney. It’s still running in theatres, expected to pass $800 million worldwide. Pretty astonishing for a film with an anti-hero protagonist, a leading man with questionable box office appeal (at least as a lead) and a poor Rotten Tomatoes rating.
There has certainly been a big clamour for a Venom film among comic book aficionados. That said, the die hard fans of the comic will likely have felt let down by the adaptation. General audiences love these films, but is the notion of Venom a little too dark? Obviously not. As mentioned, Hardy whilst popular, has struggled to headline a film successfully. Mad Max: Fury Road underwhelmed at the box office (compared to its budget), and that aside, he’s not been given the podium on a big budget piece. Granted, we’re now in the age where the concept or the franchise takes precedent over the star. With no disrespect to Hardy, you could interchange him with a number of actors, and the film would still be a hit. That being said, his role in acting his Jackson Pollocks off to inject something into a poor script can’t be underestimated. I know people who wanted to watch it, just to see Hardy battling against a film that seemed to crumble to mediocrity around him. Some compared his work to that of Nicolas Cage in ‘unleashed’ mode.
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