Todd McFarlane's Thoughts on How Venom Looked in Spider-Man 3

so I saw venom the the character in this movie this the one this version not the because I do have you talked I'm sure you've talked publicly about the how it came out in spider-man 3 and I don't know if you were in a better or not the way there it was I probably anybody I was probably the most anxious yeah oh the venoms coming is gonna be cool this it'll be cool do you like the way it come out in three and spider-man 3 4 I'll give you the simple answer simple answer's no okay but but it's not it's and it's it's it's overly simplistic no I drew venom right we got the book here people can't see this is the first this is the first cover of venom right here right that he was on the cover I mean his first appearance was was in spider-man 300 here we've got a book right here so which Stanley's autograph so cool I'm leaving that here right you can see he's a big physical presence and for me artistically I intentionally created a character that was going to be massive right why because I just wanted it to be that if it was gonna be a hand-to-hand fight between spider-man and venom Peter Parker loses every single time right we're gonna geek out now no you can't beat him in the ring he will knock you out you're a featherweight this is a heavy weight you lose it's like old Mike Tyson's punch-out little Mac right he went up against super macho might there's no way so now you're gonna have to figure out another way to beat the guy so that's what the physicality of them sort of brought and one of the things that I remember when I showed Stan he was like yeah that's it but you know test the heroes tenacity and what they can do so I wanted him to be big and he was always big in my mind he was big and he was a monster and he was the alien so I'm getting ready and now all of a sudden I got Topher he's on screen it's spider-man 3 I'm going here it goes and I go okay now the blacks coming up his legs and I'm going okay he's gonna grow and then it's up to the torso I go no no he's okay so they're gonna wait for a long time but it's had time to grow and it gets up to his neck and I go what's happening he's not wrong and I go it's just Topher with black on him I go no no no no no no no and if sam raimi was there and I knew Sam a little bit I'm like no no you're missing about 250 pounds 300 pounds what are you talking about this thing is a giant hulking gorilla and it was like ah darn it so no one consulted you about that nobody ever picked up the phone called no they don't have to and I'm not I'm not nice I'm saying why wouldn't you want to me I'm and and I the guy who's drawn him so very well and brought him to life I would want to do that be and I certainly I think that they did that for this movie because what you just mentioned right that's the version gotcha right so that said that to me when when I went to the premiere of venom yeah then I only had I had a couple of small boxes I want to check but there's only one real box for me right I'm sure again David McKee Lonnie the writer was looking for something else right my co-creator I'm the visual creator of venom yeah so I was looking for the bigness I go come on now I had seen the trailer and obviously I saw the big like wow he's got big shoulders he's got big neck come on come on come on and I just wanted him to be the biggest thing on the screen the majority of the time I go no no he can't be normal he can't be 180 pounds and they made him big so for me my I go shoot I like the movie I'm completely biased I like the movie because he's big and he's hulking and Arthur your vision they could have just had them at McDonald's eating french fries and I would have loved it as long as he was like really big at the table at McDonald's and so it was a that's what I said with Topher Grace was a little disappointing that they didn't sort of do what they did now whether they just didn't have the design for it or the researcher or CG yeah I mean all that stuff is grown all right I mean that yeah exactly we all think that like everything was doable so I got my venom I got my venom in the Tom Hardy version the Ruben Fleischer version I got I got there that's what I designed 30 years ago that guy right there

Channel: Collider Podcasts

Views: 453,044

Keywords: collider podcasts, collider podcast network, movie talk podcast, podcasts, movie talk, 1 on 1, 1 on 1 harloff, kristian harloff, collider live, jedi council podcast, spider man 3, sam raimi, todd mcfarlene, venom, topher grace

Id: 35csXhCBhK0

Length: 4min 38sec (278 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 12 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/swordclash117]

Okay I’m gonna give my two cents here: I 110% respect Todd and his opinion here, but he seems to be looking at Venom in Spider-Man 3 only through his original vision for the character as he was presented in 1988.

Venom in Spider-Man 3 isn’t really meant to be a guy with massive bodybuilder proportions with a kooky costume. He’s meant to be an evil version of Peter Parker / Spider-Man in both personality and appearance. Raimiverse Venom is of course mainly based on the classic Earth-616 version of the character but he also takes significant cues from the Ultimate Comics and Animated Series versions of Venom in addition to Raimi’s own ideas of the character.

The Raimi Spider-Man suit has a very noticeable motif in its raised and silver webbing, and so the Venom suit has webbing too as a consequence, this webbing is also raised as well however it is mangled (representing how Venom is a foil to Spider-Man). Tobey’s Spider-Man doesn’t have massive bodybuilder proportions, and so neither does Topher Grace’s Venom as he is meant to be very similar in Spider-Man in silhouette, not just in costume.

The alien also disfigures Brock’s facial appearance with fangs to show that the alien doesn’t just twist its host into something morally evil, but also physically evil as well.

Raimi’s Eddie Brock isn’t some honest albeit misguided journalist who unintentionally is ruined by Spider-Man who unwittingly proved his greatest story a fake, he’s meant to be Parker if he had a bad childhood, gives in to his darker impulses and takes shortcuts instead of always trying to do the right thing.

Parker and Brock in Spider-Man 3 have the same job as photographers, similar girlfriends (Gwen vs MJ), but dress and act differently. Parker wears thrift store clothing and combs over his hair while Brock wears expensive designer clothing and puts enormous amounts of product in his hair. Brock sucks up to Jameson and is a sleaze toward women, while Parker is able to stand up to Jameson and is always polite to women.

The relationship between Eddie and Gwen in Spider-Man 3 is meant to mirror how they were in the Ultimate continuity where Brock is only into Gwen because he thinks she will have sex with him, when Gwen realizes that Eddie doesn’t really care about her as a person and is a sleaze, she rejects him. There was actually a scene cut from Spider-Man 3 which showed Gwen breaking up with Eddie after he is fired and decides to go to her house to seek solace, Gwen tells Eddie she is going on a date with Peter Parker instead.

Also in both Spider-Man 3 and the Ultimate continuity, Eddie already hates Parker even before finding out he is Spider-Man and bonding with the symbiote even if it is for different reasons. In Ultimate Comics Eddie hates Parker as he sees him as trying to destroy their parent’s “legacy” (which is the symbiote itself) whereas in Spider-Man 3, Eddie hates Parker for making him “lose” his job and girl.

The Animated Series had a profound effect on most adaptations of Venom created after and even on the original version of Venom in the comics. This is where the trope first originated from that the alien makes Spider-Man stronger (not just Brock) and aggressive. When the alien bonds with Eddie, it makes him evil and he has to “resist” the alien (this idea was somewhat explored in the Separation Anxiety miniseries but the Animated Series is what cemented this idea in the head of all fans everywhere).

Now onto the rest of the influence the Animated Series had on the depiction of Spider-Man 3’s Venom, Brock here is depicted as a photographer (instead of a reporter) who sucks up to Jameson and while he doesn’t actually fake a photo, he does frame Spider-Man for the theft of Prometheus X by hiding the shots of the Rhino taking it, which has the same effect that the fake photo did in Spider-Man 3 which is causing the city to turn against Spider-Man. Why does Brock do this in both TAS and Spider-Man 3? To get into Jameson’s good graces.

Also I’m a little confused on what he means by Venom being a “hulking gorilla”. Venom in his early appearances was shown to be very fast and agile, being almost, if not on par with Spider-Man, in that he can web sling, wall crawl, and fight head on.

When Venom first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #300 his proportions and height, while very very impressive, were still realistic in that Venom was 6’3 and 260 pounds. Also his statement on where he thought Topher was suddenly gonna get massively bigger when bonding with the alien kind of runs in contrast with how Venom was originally depicted artistically in where the alien costume was skintight on Brock and the height and weight was all Brock.

Mr. McFarlane’s statements in this interview kind of make it seem that he likes how the symbiote was depicted in the Ultimate continuity where it acts more like a cocoon wrapping its host making them massively bigger and taller. This way of depicting Venom drifted into the main continuity for a few years until around Dark Reign I believe where artists then massively toned it down.