Venom Trailer #2: Tom Hardy Embraces His Inner Anti-Hero

Sony Pictures officially releases the second trailer for Venom. The studio’s attempt to bring an off-shoot cinematic universe building on the lore of Spider-Man to life has had its fair share of ups and downs. They did generate plenty of excitement when Tom Hardy joined the project as its titular character, Eddie Brock. Sony also brought Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer on board, but a lot of the excitement behind the film dwindled after Venom‘s first trailer released.

In a move that divided fans, Sony left the actual Venom out of the first Venom trailer. The trailer instead took a grounded approach, just showing the life of Eddie Brock. There’s been a call for the symbiote to be fully revealed ever since – and it looks that Sony has finally listened to the fans.

Sony Pictures debuted the second trailer for Venom today, following the trailer’s first premiere at CinemaCon 2018 – an annual convention for movie theater owners in which distributors present their upcoming lineups for the year. You can watch the trailer in the section above – which features the first non-leaked look at Tom Hardy’s Venom.

The trailer offers plenty of details that previously were not confirmed for Venom. It was previously revealed that Hardy would be playing the Eddie Brock version of the character, but the trailer wastes little time establishing his career as a journalist. He’s investigating Dr. Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed) and his company. Some of the details were pulled from Venom‘s first look image, but the trailer shows Jenny Slate’s involvement in filling Hardy in to what is really going on. That includes the experimentation with the symbiotes on those who will surely be the other Venom-like beings they’ve teased before.

The big Symbiote here, though, is Hardy’s Venom. The trailer only offers up one full look at the anti-hero, but there’s plenty of other showings of his powers. The Symbiote is heard speaking to Eddie several times, but there’s also an emphasis on it protecting its new host. The Symbiote takes control to defeat a couple of goons who raid Brock’s apartment, but it also goes to some crazier lengths to keep him safe while on his motorcycle.

There’s still no hint of Woody Harrleson, though, and recent rumors claim he’s playing Carnage. This could add credence to reports he’s a very minor character here, and instead is being set up for a sequel. While its too early to discuss Venom‘s sequel chances, if it can deliver on the character focused horror approach it appears to be aiming for, then this could very well finally give Sony their shared universe they’ve wanted for years.

KEY RELEASE DATES
Venom release date: Oct 5, 2018
Silver and Black release date: Feb 8, 2019