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Venom illustrates why standalone movies about villains don't work

posted 6 years ago by DarthRoger (867)
58 replies | jump to latest

Comic book villains have stories that are better told when juxtaposed with the hero's story. It's a formula that works in making these types of movies. For some reason, I keep hearing talk of standalone Doctor Doom, Joker and Harley Quinn movies, even though there's no huge swell of support from fans.
That's not to say that these characters aren't popular. They are beloved. But that isn't a reason to build a movie around a solo villain. What defines a villain is the hero and vise-versa. Venom may be a case study. Fans love Venom but only in the context of his hated foe Spider-man and the world they both inhabit. The same goes for Joker. Would you really care about Joker if his world didn't include Batman? They are each other's yin and yang. If one doesn't exist, the other has nothing to do that's really all that interesting.
In making a Venom movie, I can't imagine what they were going for in terms of story. Since there's no Spider-man for Venom to oppose, there's no conflict on a equal level with a worthy protagonist. How these studios like Sony and WB can't grasp this simple formula for bringing comic book characters to life is beyond me. How can we know this and they not know it.
Sadly, it looks like Venom is going to suffer from not having a defined arch-enemy and a muddled story. Such a shame for such a good character.

[–] crc32 (2584) 6 years ago

Comic book villains have stories that are better told when juxtaposed with the hero's story.

Maby thats why brock isn't a villian in this story and why venom for what ever reason starts showing signs that he's going to be a dark good guy like spawn in the film. Were brock and venom outright villians in the comic? I know brock was always an ass hole which is what throws me off in this film. He seems like an SJW trying to take down what I think is oscorp operating in san fransico's Trans American pyramid. IE Oscorp is researching the symbiants they collected from a space comet and are finding homless people to expose the symbiants to. IE oscorp bad, brock good. Venom seems to start off bad but starts becoming altruistic towards the end of the film in a surprise.

[–] GreenGoblinsOck8 (7401) 6 years ago

"Were brock and venom outright villians in the comic?"

Yes. Before Venom meets Spider-Man for the first time in the original comic he appeared in, he is in a church and kills a police officer that confronts him. In another comic that came out with him not long after that, he kills a security guard when escaping prison. Later on he did become a good guy for a while but they did turn him back to a villain later on. It doesn't bother me though that he's a good guy in this movie. I like the comics where he is a good guy. I do like the comics where he's he a bad guy too. I thought some good came out of the good guy comics. Around that time you find out his father was negligent of him as a kid and even as an adult, nothing he did could please him. Then there's the thing just before that when they have it turn out his wife left him after printing the false story that got him fired from the Daily Globe (which is referenced in the movie). Anyway that's my take on it.

[–] TristanReloaded (449) 6 years ago

lol, what a fallacious rant. Anti-hero stories have long tradition, they are just meant for an older audience, not the typical audience of intelligence ages of 8-14 that MCU target.

As for Venom, define what "not works" means: If this keeps going on Venom will beat the last record holder "Gravity" (a quality thriller and grand technical achievement). Impressive, most impressive.

Must be word of mouth considering the systematic anti-hype that came from various directions. Currently got 89% on RT and B+ Cinema Score. Very divisive film, some big outlets like SJU or GR loved it, others hated it.
variety.com/2018/film/box-office/venom-a-star-is-born-box-office-the-hate-u-give-loving-pablo-1202971215/

Not bad for an out-of-formula anti-hero film. Congrats to Sony if this remains true.

[–] PaladinNJ (20309) 6 years ago

Deadpool seems to be succeeding.

[–] DarthRoger (867) 6 years ago

Well Venom seems to be succeeding too, so maybe my postmortem on that movie is greatly misinformed.
As for Deadpool, he's always been a loner. His movies work just fine and are loved. Looks like Venom will be in that category as well.

[–] dlancer (2036) 6 years ago

No offense, but your thread failed to illustrate what Venom was going for. It looks like you assumed they were going to build up a villain when instead they went the anti-hero route. In the comics, Venom is actually both depending on the story. Venom is a popular enough character to attempt this with. The problem they ran into was they filmed it as R-rated and then edited it to fit a PG-13 rating. We're essentially looking at an unfinished movie which is why it looks rushed in places. None of that illustrates why a standalone Venom movie wouldn't work.

Though at the end of the day, the PG-13 rating appears to have paid off. What they lost in content in the editing room, they appear to have made up for in box office receipts, almost guaranteeing a sequel. As long as they plan it out as PG-13 from the beginning, or go back to R, there's plenty opportunity for a sequel to satisfy audiences and critics.

[–] DarthRoger (867) 6 years ago

No offense taken. I wish they had made the R-rated version, just so we could see what they would have done with it.

[–] AP (5258) 6 years ago

Even when Deadpool was an out-and-out villain, he was never exclusively belonging to one rogues gallery or another. He was randomly a villain for any mutant hero or mutant hero team who had a team of writers who wanted to use him. Pretty soon, he was showing up to fight Luke Cage, Silver Sable, etc. When it came time for him to branch out as his own anti-hero, it worked. He had no superhero to hold him back. That's why it works for him.

[–] LetThemEatCake (2717) 6 years ago

There can't be villains nowadays. The democratic lynchmob has made sure that evil intentions are eradicated from film, as well as many other things.

[–] DarthRoger (867) 6 years ago

Oh yeah, that's right. They think "evil" is just a concept created by people or institutions of power.

I recall those two fools from DC who said that exact same thing - evil is a concept, it's not real. They then went bicycling across the globe to show everyone how loving other cultures are and got murdered in Tajikistan by radical Islamic terrorists.

Yep. Loving cultures. Evil isn't a real thing. Guess we saw how that worked out for them.

Good is good, evil is evil and one of the central tenants of comics and comic book movies is good vs evil. They aren't really interchangeable, although a lot of people on the far left want to argue otherwise. What a bunch of creeps.

[–] LetThemEatCake (2717) 6 years ago

lol did they really got murdered?

[–] DarthRoger (867) 6 years ago

Yes indeed. Here's a link to the story

https://www.npr.org/2018/07/31/634373403/d-c-couple-killed-in-tajikistan-attack-were-biking-around-the-world-together

[–] Strazdas (2328) 5 years ago

As ironic as that ended up being, got to give it to them that they at least put their money where their mouth is. Most seem to only espouse thier beliefs as long as its from a safe distance.

[–] MasterPenguin (165) 6 years ago

Any movie can work as a standalone.

I have high hopes for the Joker one as seems they are very much doing a story that doesn't need Batman.

Venom very easily can work as a stand alone because even in the comics he isn't just a villain he actually isn't fully evil and is an anti-hero. He does do good things.

In saying that, Venom very much needs to be in a spiderman movie and done right. The potential there is amazing.

[–] BrunoAntony (1198) 6 years ago

There have been plenty of great movies about villains, like "The Godfather", "Bonnie & Clyde" and "The Wild Bunch", to name just a few.

There hasn't been plenty of great movies about SUPER villains because the filmmakers who have tried making them have been lousy, not because the concept is flawed.

Get your mind outside of the comic book.

[–] DarthRoger (867) 6 years ago

All I'm saying is that most comic book villains were originally created to be adversaries for comic book heros. As comics industry advanced and became more artful, Marvel was created and writers started giving their villains more backstory. This ties into my argument.

Take Victor Von Doom. His story is connected to Reed Richards, the future Mr. Fantastic. You can't tell a Doom standalone without the Reed Richards component, because the fallout from their connection is the crystallizing moment that puts him on a path to become Doctor Doom.

[–] Elafella (83) 6 years ago

Joker's origin isn't particularly connected to Batman compared to Spider-Man/Venom, which is why I also have high hopes for that one.

[–] mentality (181) 6 years ago

Venom is not failing at the BO.

[–] Strazdas (2328) 5 years ago

A villian movie can work. It needs two things however:

1. The villiant to be actually villanous, not "basically a hero but kills bad guys so cant be called that".

2. To have a motivation based on something agreeable, but only choose methods we consider villanous. In that sense, Drake here was a better villain than Venom. Thanos is the best example on recent superhero universe for this. Good intentions, terrible methods.