There has been a lot of speculation that Sony might move forward on a Venom movie, spinning the character off from the popularity of the Spiderman franchise.  Reports now indicate that Sony has hired a couple of screenwriters to put together the screenplay.  Venom was destroyed at the end of Spiderman 3, however a piece of the black alien survived and now it’s looking good for a comeback.

This news comes at the same time as the news that Tobey Maguire and director Sam Raimi will be returning for Spiderman 4 and Spiderman 5 - and it looks like both movies will be produced at the same time to save on costs.  Admittedly Sony has not provided official confirmation of this, but inside information would seem to indicate it’s a done deal.

Insiders have also indicated that Spiderman 4 & 5 won’t go down the dark path to capitalize on the popularity of movies such as The Dark Knight, despite a certain darkness in the third movie.  However, it seems fairly obvious that this won’t be the case for Venom and, quite honestly, can’t be the case.  Venom is a dark, brooding alien monster.  Lighten that up and you lose the essence of the character.  Some people, including Todd McFarlane (the creator of the Venom character), feel that an evil villain will never hold as the main character of a movie.  Sony may feel the same, and speculation is running rampant as to whether or not a new actor will be hired to play Venom (as Topher Grace’s character was killed in Spiderman 3) that has more of likeable nature.

We hope that Sony take a risk and go for the main character as a villain.  What The Dark Knight has done for darkness in comic book movies, Venom could take a step further.  The villian could still be a character wrestling with his Jekyll and Hyde nature so that the audience has empathy for the main character, but,  to do Venom justice, the evil that is the black alien needs to be retained.   Perhaps one way around it might be to create an even worse, even more evil villain that forces Venom to have to become a type of Spiderman - sort of like the lesser of two evils scenario.  Do I hear Carnage anyone?

One can only hope.

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