Venom (Spider-Man Films)


 * NOTE: This article is about the human named Eddie Brock who took the alias Venom during the events of Spider-Man 3, and not about the symbiote.

"I like being bad. It makes me happy."

- Eddie telling Spider-man that he enjoys his villainy and his famous quote.

Eddie Brock, later known as Venom, is the main antagonist of the 2007 superhero film, Spider-Man 3.

He is a former freelance photographer and Peter Parker/Spider-Man's rival in the Daily Bugle who, after bonding with the symbiote, turned into a psychopathic and monstrous creature equipped with the same suit and powers of Spider-Man. This alongside his personality makes him Spider-Man's evil counterpart. He is an adaptation of Venom from the original comics.

He was portrayed and voiced by Topher Grace, who also portrayed Edwin in Predators and Adrian Yates in American Ultra.

Spider-Man
At the time of Spider-Man's first appearance in New York, Eddie Brock is already an active freelance photographer. While mulling over what to make of Spider-Man, The Daily Bugle editor Robbie Robertson is heard remarking "Eddie's been trying to get a picture of him for weeks".

As a Photographer on Daily Bugle
At first glance, Eddie is an exact opposite to Peter Parker in almost every way imaginable; he dresses in spiffy designer clothes, uses enormous hair product, rides a motorcycle, and seems progressively tanned.

As a boyfriend for Gwen Stacy
Eddie is louder, more flamboyant, more able to schmooze and socialize, and overly arrogant and obnoxious, but certainly a lot more polished. However, Eddie lacks elsewhere, he apparently has no real friends or close family. Eddie considers himself a ladies' man, but the ladies themselves don't concur. He is known to have once dated Gwen Stacy who's a model and a physicist.

Losing his Job and Transformation
After one coffee date, she has no interest in pursuing things further. Eddie flirts with J. Jonah Jameson's secretary Miss Betty Brant. She's amused at the gesture, but brushes him off. And his cologne seems to disgust more than it attracts. After the alien symbiote took him over, Peter began to act more like Eddie.

After losing his job and his reputation for forging a photo of Spider-Man robbing a bank, Eddie saw Peter with Gwen Stacy and was as depressed as ever. He went into a church and prayed for Peter's death. Almost like a divine hand granted his wish, he heard a scream from above. Peter was at the top of the bell tower attempting to tear the symbiote suit from his body and with the help of the bell's thunderous chimes, the suit seemed to be shrieking in pain. Peter ripped off the symbiote, and as it fell, it landed on Eddie, transforming him into Venom.

Making Flint Marko his ally
Brock, now re-born as Venom, traveled around the city web-slinging and swinging in Spider-Man's own style, looking for the real Spider-Man himself. While doing so, he happened to run into the Sandman in an alley. The Sandman attacked Venom, believing him to be Spider-Man, but Venom proposed that the two of them form a partnership to kill the web-slinger, which the Sandman agreed on.

The Final Battle and Killing Harry
Brock captured Mary Jane Watson through use of a taxi. Peter put on his old traditional blue and red Spider-Man costume when he heard of her disappearance. Upon arriving at Venom's trap, Peter attempted to plead with Eddie and warned of the dangers of the symbiote, and the unholy being it made its wearer. The cautions didn't faze Eddie as he preferred being evil. But then Peter's friend Harry Osborn came blazing onto the scene to save Peter, in his New Goblin gear.

Harry tried to keep The Sandman at bay while Peter tried to take care of Venom. Then, Harry sacrificed himself to save Peter and Mary Jane during the ensuing fight, Venom fatally stabbing him with his own glider, similar to how Norman Osborn died.

Recalling the symbiote's weakness to sonic vibrations, Peter took a pipe and banged it against a row of others, making a thundering chiming. Venom writhed in pain, revealing Brock, and Peter ripped Brock from the symbiote. However, the symbiote, now completely independent, prepared to kill Peter.

Death
Peter grabbed one of Harry's pumpkin bombs and hurled it right at the alien matter. In an unexpected surprise, Eddie became horrified as he knew what was about to happen and instead ran towards to the symbiote in order to don it once more. Peter was shocked at what Eddie was doing and began rushing to save him, but was too late when the bomb detonated, destroying the symbiote and vaporizing Eddie in the process.

Quotes
"I want him dead, too, Flint. That's why I've been looking for you. Oh yeah, I know all about you, like the fact that Spider-Man won't let you help your poor daughter. That just… doesn't seem right to me. Look, I wanna kill the spider. You wanna kill the spider. Together, he doesn't stand a chance. Interested?"

- Eddie allying himself with Marko.

"You’re so right. I'm thinking… humiliation. Kind of like how you humiliated me. Do you remember? Do you remember what you did to me? You made me lose my girl, now I'm gonna make you lose yours. How's that sound, tiger?"

- Eddie to Peter as he is about to kill Mary Jane.

"Never wound what you can't kill."

- Venom to Spider-Man.

"Peter! What are you doing?! NO! GA-AH!"

- Eddie Brock's last words to Peter before getting vaporized in the explosion of the symbiote.

Trivia

 * Apart from the credits, Venom's name is never mentioned in the film.
 * Eddie Brock is the only villain in the Raimi series to willingly become evil as he enjoys being an evil villain, unlike the other major villains of the film series who became evil due to certain circumstances:
 * Green Goblin became evil due to a power-enhancing serum;
 * Doctor Octopus became evil due to a failed fusion power experiment as well as falling victim to his tentacles' manipulation;
 * New Goblin resorted to crime to avenge his father's death;
 * Sandman resorted to crime to support for his sick daughter;
 * Dennis Carradine was briefly helping Sandman in robbing to support for his daughter.
 * His working for the Daily Bugle and frame-up of Spider-Man bears similarities to his 1990s counterpart and both get fired as a result, but unlike his film counterpart, he goes to the side of outright evil while his 1990 counterpart redeemed himself and became an ally of Spider-Man.
 * Originally, Sam Raimi didn't want to include Venom in the movie as he wasn't a fan of the character. However, he was pushed by Sony to include Venom as a sort of fan service. That being said, fans did not like this iteration of Venom, particularly because Brock does not become Venom until towards the end.
 * In other earlier scripts of the film, the Lizard and Electro were planned to be the antagonists, rather than Venom and the Sandman. However, the Lizard appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man movie while Electro appeared in the sequel.
 * According to Raimi, a spin-off titled Venom was planned by Gary Ross. Also, Ross planned to include Spider-Man and a cameo of Stan Lee in the spin-off. The film was planned to release in 2012 or 2013. However, after the cancellation of Spider-Man 4 and the reboot of the Spider-Man theatrical franchise, Sony canceled and scrapped the spin-off, which proves Venom died in the explosion.
 * However, Venom would still receive his own spin-off film, set to release in October.
 * In the video games adaptations of Spider-Man 3, Venom's defeat is very different to his defeat in the movie:
 * In the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC versions of the video game, he and Spider-Man fell from the construction site, but Spidey saved himself and leaving Venom falling above metal tubes, which pass through it, killing him. Also, in the video game, is never made clear what happened with the Symbiote after this.
 * In the PS2, Wii and PlayStation Portable versions of the video game, after Spider-Man simply defeats him, Eddie Brock lost control of the Symbiote where it simply killed him. Also, in the video game, it was never made clear about what happened with the Symbiote after this.
 * In the Game Boy Advance version of the video game, Venom fell from the construction building with Spider-Man. However, Spidey saved himself, and Venom fell into the void, before the symbiote abandons Eddie's body entirely, leaving his fate unknown.
 * In the TV Game version of the video game, Venom was simply defeated by Spider-Man.
 * In the mobile phone version of the game, Venom was defeated by Spider-Man, but he escaped when Spider-Man saves Mary Jane. However, he promised Spider-Man that they would meet again before escaping.
 * It is never explained how he found out about Peter and Mary Jane's relationship since he never saw them together prior to kidnapping MJ and when he kidnapped her, she and Peter were partially estranged. However, since Brock knows that Peter is Spider-Man, it is possible that the symbiote retains the memories of its past hosts.
 * This incarnation of Venom lacks the others' bulky physique, being nearly the same physique as Spider-Man himself.
 * Unlike most versions of the character, who refer to themselves as "we" (i.e. both Brock and the symbiote), this version refers to himself as "I", implying that Brock is in total control of the symbiote.
 * While being in the Venom costume, Topher Grace didn't drink any water during his breaks because he couldn't use the bathroom with his costume on.
 * To prepare for his role as Venom, Topher Grace worked out for six months, gaining 24 pounds of muscle. He based his performance on alcoholics and drug addicts.
 * Both Topher Grace and Thomas Haden Church confessed that when they were unceremoniously invited to meetings at Sony, they had no idea they would be auditioning for this film.
 * Eddie's line "My spider-sense is tingling... if you know what I'm talking about!" when referring to MJ, was Topher Grace's idea.
 * When the symbiote attaches to Peter's motorcycle license plate, it takes on the shape of a V (for Venom).
 * The character of Eddie Brock/Venom, as portrayed in this film, is an amalgamation of his "Amazing Spider-Man" (an obsessive journalist) and "Ultimate" (a skinny young man with a crush on Gwen Stacy) versions. This was done to present Eddie Brock as a shadowy reflection of Peter Parker (which shows that Peter Parker, when affected by the symbiote, starts to act like Eddie).
 * In the comics, the symbiote was a flowing sentient liquid ooze. Sam Raimi was very clear on the film's portrayal of the symbiote: he wanted it to have character, but not to resemble a spider or octopus. As portrayed in the film, it possesses a webbing form (it was composed of many separate CGI threads) that gives it a sense of life and an appearance of gripping onto someone's body.
 * The font of Venom's web message is the same font used for the title of the comic, Sensational Spider-Man.
 * The villains' meeting would have seen Eddie coming across Flint pretending to be sand in a playground for his little girl to play on. Talking to Flint, Eddie would have convinced him that his girl may be cured yet.
 * The union between Venom and Sandman originally had Venom just offering the cash Sandman needs to save his daughter in exchange for helping him kill Spider-Man, but during the battle, Sandman's daughter would come and tell her father that she could not be cured and was going to die, and wanted to die with her father being a good man, not a criminal.
 * While Topher Grace was a big comic book fan and had read the first Venom stories as a boy, he found the suit he had to wear as Venom extremely unpleasant. It took an hour to put on (and four hours to apply the prosthetics), and it had to be constantly smeared with goo to give it a liquid organic feel. Grace also had to wear fangs, which bruised his gums.
 * When Spider-Man removes the symbiote costume, he is in a church tower and the sound of the bell allows Spider-Man to remove it, immediately afterward, it attaches itself to Eddie Brock where he transforms into Venom. This is almost exactly what happened in the Amazing Spider-Man comics.
 * When Eddie jumps in the symbiote, during his death in the explosion, for a few frames, his skeleton briefly appears, around the same time, the ball of nuclear energy is released, after being pulled in.
 * Despite being the main antagonist of the film, Venom doesn't appear until near the end of the movie. Furthermore, the symbiote itself drives most of the plot, arguably making it the real main antagonist of the movie.
 * This is, by far, the evilest version of Venom/Eddie Brock.
 * Originally in the film, towards the end the Symbiote would have revealed a smoking skeleton and when Peter separated the symbiote, all that remained was a hunk of bones, meaning that the symbiote drained Eddie's life. The skeleton props were also made, with Eddie's skull in particular having a resemblance to Venom's face. This was reshot because the test audience deemed it too dark.

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Venom (Spider-Man 3)