Sam Raimi Hasn't Seen Tom Hardy's Venom Movies | Screen Rant
Spider-Man trilogy director Sam Raimi has admitted that he hasn't seen the Tom Hardy Venom films. When most people think of the Marvel anti-hero Venom, these days, Hardy's interpretation of the character comes to mind. He first took on the role in Venom back in 2018, which was helmed by Ruben Fleischer. The film tells the story of the journalist Eddie Brock who becomes bonded with the alien symbiote Venom. While it was not particularly critically successful, it still did well enough for Sony to greenlight a sequel. In 2021, Venom: Let There Be Carnage was released in theaters, this time directed by Andy Serkis. The film saw similar mixed reviews, though, along with 2022's Morbius, still seems to have plans of setting up a Sony cinematic universe.
Of course, Hardy was not the first live-action cinematic Venom. The character made his big screen debut in Raimi's Spider-Man 3, which premiered in 2007. Spider-Man 3 is widely considered to be the worst of Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy, and part of that has to do with it's over-saturation of villains. Since the film's release, Raimi has been quite open about the fact that he was urged to include Venom in Spider-Man 3 by the studio as Venom was a fan favorite Spider-Man villain, and thus, the character seems somewhat shoehorned into the final act of the film.
In a recent interview with Uproxx to discuss his return to the world of Marvel with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Raimi has discussed his relationship to the character of Venom, and admitted that he has not seen the newer Hardy movies. As a fan of Spider-Man comics himself, Raimi has admitted that he was simply never a fan of the character of Venom, but has stated that he is happy that the new Venom films were able to make the character work. Raimi has gone on to state that the reason he has never identified with the character boils down to the fact that he struggles too much to see the humanity in Venom to be able to identify with him. This, of course, lead Raimi to struggle with interpreting the character for the big screen. See his full quote below:
"I have not seen them... It was really more just that I didn’t understand the character that well. It wasn’t close to my heart. The best thing I like about Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s Spider-Man is that they made relatable characters that I understand. Even if they were confused, like Norman Osborn, they still have goodness in their heart. They want them to do the right thing, or Peter Parker. Or even J. Jonah Jameson has goodness in his heart. When I read about Venom, which I hadn’t read as a kid, I had to catch up on it when they wanted him to be in the movie. I didn’t recognize enough humanity within that character to be able to identify with him properly. That’s really what it boils down to."
This opinion doesn't come as much of a surprise. Raimi has always been a director who approaches all of his films from a character standpoint. Raimi even recently admitted that he landed the job directing Spider-Man in the first place by pitching it as a soap opera about Peter Parker and Mary Jane's relationship. As well, both the Green Goblin and Doc Ock (who served as the villains in Raimi's previous two Spider-Man films) were characters who, while committing horrible acts, still had goodness in their heart, which is something Venom doesn't have. For a director who places such importance on relatable characters, its no wonder he struggled so much with a character that he couldn't identify with himself.
With that said, this information actually bodes quite well for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, as Raimi has admitted he's a fan of Doctor Strange. The director's proven time and time again that when he is working with a character that he truly cares about, he can make some magic happen, and based upon what has been revealed about the film so far, it sounds like Raimi has done it again. Perhaps if Raimi were to see the newer Venom films, he would get a new perspective on the character that he hadn't considered before. With that said, Spider-Man 3's portrayal of Venom certainly doesn't mar Raimi's whole series, and the Spider-Man trilogy still stands as a landmark in superhero movie history.
Source: Uproxx