See Tom Hardy as New Marvel Antihero in ‘Venom’ Trailer
Marvel’s new superhero spinoff series is Venom. Tom Hardy plays a reporter named Eddie Brock as well as Venom, an “alien symbiote” stuck in a human body.
The first trailer offers little information and only vague hints about the hero’s origin story. Hardy spends most of the clip lying on his back in a hospital; quick flashbacks suggest he was in some kind of accident following a high-speed motorcycle chase.
“Everyone’s got their thing,” a voiceover says. “Maybe it’s a break-up, a death, an accident. Whatever it is, you used to be one thing, now you’re something else. We all have our own problems, our own issues, our own demons.”
As the trailer comes to a close, there is a glimpse of Hardy’s transformation from Brock to Venom. Dark veins spiral up his neck towards his head as Hardy thrashes and screams on his hospital bed. “[Brock and the symbiote] become almost a third being, which is what Venom is,” director Ruben Fleischer told Variety. “There’s a famous quote: ‘You’re Eddie Brock. I’m the symbiote. Together we are Venom.'”
“I’ve always been drawn to the more antihero superheroes,” Fleischer added. “There’s a dark element to [Venom] and a wit that has always appealed to me.”
This is not Hardy’s first time in a superhero film: You may remember his chilling turn as the villain in The Dark Night Rises. Hardy stars in Venom alongside Michelle Williams and Riz Ahmed.
Venom is set for wide release on October 5, 2018.