This week bring us Venom: The Last Dance, Tom Hardy’s capstone project in the world’s least likely superhero trilogy—yes, even less likely than Deadpool, because Deadpool is considered a good movie and Venom is not.
Yet fans love Hardy in the dual role of down on his luck reporter Eddie Brock and his space symbiote boyfriend, Venom, and this trilogy exists because Hardy and his collaborators, including screenwriter turned director Kelly Marcel, leaned all the way the f-ck into the first movie’s accidental rom-com vibes. Even the title of this third and probably final film acknowledges that this franchise is latently romantic.
The Venom 3 New York premiere was last night, and Tom Hardy showed up doing the least. The premiere also brought out co-stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rhys Ifans, Juno Temple (who did double duty yesterday, also stopping by Late Night with Seth Meyers), and Cristo Fernández, who will reprise his cameo role as “bartender” from Spider-Man: No Way Home. Sony is really going to try to shove Venom into the MCU by hook or by crook, and I admire the effort.
Also at the premiere was Kelly Marcel, who is making her directorial debut with this film. She first worked with Hardy on his breakout film Bronson, and he really stuck with her throughout their shared Venom ride. Hardy is not always known as a good collaborator (see also: Mad Max: Fury Road), but maybe it’s a sign of growth he formed such a solid and productive working relationship with Marcel. Although, it probably won’t help much that Venom 3 is projected to open with $70 million, lower than the previous two films.
My estimate is that it opens even lower, in the $50-60 million range. I just haven’t felt a lot of excitement for this film outside of the most hardcore fans. In fact, I’m starting to suspect casual fans are completely done with Spider-Man characters NOT fighting Spider-Man. Even Venom, the most popular non-Spidey Spider-Man character, needs to f-cking meet Tom Holland already. That’s all people want, and the longer you don’t give it to them, the more they check out. But Sony has two opportunities to prove me wrong, with Venom 3 this weekend and Kraven the Hunter in December. We shall see.
