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WMG / Venom (2018)

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The villain will be Carnage, Anti-Venom, or both
  • And they are not Zendaya, whether they appear or not!
    • Confirmed. It's Carnage. Well, he at least makes something of an appearance, post-credits.

The film is still loosely connected to the continuity of The Amazing Spider-Man Series
But something has altered this universe. An unforeseen death that has kept it from continuing on its destined path. The Andrew Garfield Spider-Man is dead, murdered by forces from beyond his universe, which has realigned to keep the other characters Sony has the rights to intact, but changed. No, I'm not talking about the real life business agreements between Sony and Marvel, but an in-universe explanation; The Beyonder. The Beyonder killed Spider-Man as part of to see how characters such as his villains, Venom, Black Cat, and others would change and develop in a world without the character they all revolved around and who would ultimately win between those definable as heroes and villains. All of this is unknown by the inhabitants of this universe, making it a new, literal Secret War.

In the sequel film we will see that Venom has become a Hero with Bad Publicity Much like how Spider-man normally is
Would make sense....i mean i don't think the police would appreciate a vigilante who eats criminals.

The movie won't be a bomb
Whether or not it is successful is way to early to guess, but since so many seem to actually be rooting for the film to be terrible and fail financially, I wanted to float the idea that it might be successful as both a film and a product. Some would rather hope for a good piece of entertainment than root for failure on the slight chance that it'll make Venom a transfer to the MCU.
  • If the definition of a bomb is 'Doesn't turn a profit', this chalk this WMG up to a confirmed, see And You Thought It Would Fail on the YMMV page for more.

The Black Cat and Silver Sable will be referenced at some point
It would be a cool but simple way to establish that they exist in the same continuity.
  • Jossed, no mention of either.

The film will detail the origin of both Venom and Carnage
How Eddie became Venom will use flashbacks and exposition while Carnage's creation will be a major plot point.
  • It details the origin of Venom, alright, but carnage is nowhere to be seen before The Stinger.

Carnage isn't the primary villain
He will instead be created by scientists working for the initial Big Bad of the movie using a piece of the symbiote. This is to create a way to kill Venom, but he is able to survive fighting Carnage. Carnage himself will escape and be the sole villain in a sequel.
  • Confirmed as far as the primary villain status goes - the main villain is a human who later bonds with the Riot symbiote
  • Jossed for everything else.

Eddie Brock will be British.
That way Tom Hardy can use his natural accent. It could work, especially in light of Tom Holland having to pull a Fake American for Peter Parker.
  • Jossed. He's American.

Carnage's powers will be slightly altered in some way.
In order to avoid him feeling like a full "villain with the same powers as the hero" trope, and also to avoid accusations of ripping off X-24.

Lin-Manuel Miranda will get his wish to play Carnage
If not in this film, he'll probably play another character who takes the Carnage symbiote from Cletus Kassady.

Potential cast members

Eddie Brock will be a Composite Character of himself and other Venom hosts
He could be the first host of Venom like Peter Parker, and go on to use the symbiote's powers for heroics like Flash Thompson. He could also have a pre-Venom life of crime like Mac Gargan for good measure.
  • Eddie already does use the symbiote's powers for heroics, so if they take something from Flash it would have to be his military background.

The song "Firefly" by Breaking Benjamin will be used in the soundtrack
The lyrics could be reinterpreted as being about Brock's connection to the symbiote.

One of the characters will be a relative of Gwen Stacy
Maybe her aunt, uncle, or cousin (who she canonically has, even if they're obscure).
  • Now that the movie is out - no trace of Gwen Stacy or any relatives.

Beck Underwood will appear
She'd make a good supporting character for Venom, since he could still have once been a reporter like she is.

The film will be rife with references to science fiction horror movies.
Most likely The Thing and Alien.

Spider-Man will appear as part of Venom's origin
Tom Holland will appear in the movie's first minutes having the symbiote, then passing it to Eddie Brock and hinted the rivalry between them, just like in the comics. All of this as the intro for the movie, just like The Incredible Hulk (2008) when Hulk's origin was made during the first minutes, adapted out the first movie and making nods with the 70s series.
  • Jossed. Spidey is nowhere to be seen.

The symbiote is a Sequel Hook for Into the Spider-Verse
Honestly, the only way they could possibly tie the symbiote to Spider-Man without actually dealing with it bonding with Spider-Man first would be if it was some kind of alternate universe entity that has been involved with an alternate Spider-Man in the past. It sought out the MCU Eddie Brock (Kevin Fiege agreed that these characters do reside in the Marvel Cinematic Universe but has stories that are completely separate from the main movies) because he was a familiar and more trusted face. This allows Venom to exist without having to go through the whole thing of being Spidey's black costume and for Sony to easily set up their own cinematic universe.
  • If early reports are anything to go by, there is a post-credits stinger that is just a scene from Into The Spider-Verse, in the same way "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" promoted Days Of Future Past.

Venom will appear even less than in Spider-Man 3.
It will be an Eddie Brock film and the symbiotes will look like Venom and Carnage just in the climax.
  • Jossed due to statements by Tom Hardy - and the movie itself.

Life (2017) is *at least* a prelude to Venom (2018)
In Venom (2018), the symbiote is being experimented on by The Life Foundation. In Life (2017), an alien lifeform is found and studied, eventually showing symbiotic and conservation of mass ignoring properties. At the end of Life, the lifeform falls to Earth in an escape pod. Both movies are produced by Columbia Pictures.

Venom will not have his Chest Insignia at first, but will somehow get it in the film's latter half or the climax.
From what we have seen so far, Venom's symbol doesn't seem to be visible on his torso, at least from the angles given in the second trailer, indicating that it could show up at a later point. In addition it would serve as a nice Mythology Gag to Ultimate Spider-Man (both comic and game).
  • It'll probably be a Sequel Hook where it's revealed that the Venom Symbiote and by extension the other symbiotes have a connection to Spider-Man. Maybe when Venom catches a glimpse of Spider-Man on the news or something, the chest insignia will form and it'll probably start acting like a Yandere, much to Eddie's confusion.
  • Maybe the symbiote absorbs a spider and then uses the spider DNA to stabilise itself, rather than corrupt Eddie's own DNA for whatever purposes it had.
  • Perhaps right after Venom defeats Riot for good, he absorbs Riot's symbiote in front of a dying Drake, as it reshapes into the Chest Insignia - much like what he did with Carnage in the Ultimate Spider-Man game.
  • Confirmed that he doesn't have the chest insignia - Jossed that he gets it.

Carnage will be like his Ultimate version
Hostless and a mindless monster searching to feed off of innocent victims. Also he'll probably just appear near the end to have an all out brawl with his father Venom and his siblings before getting defeated, giving birth to Toxin, and slinking off to bond with Cletus Kasady.
  • Carnage is nowhere to be seen.

Eddie is supposed to be an incompetent reporter
His idiocy with confronting Drake publicly is supposed to be an indicator for his smugness and arrogance with his journalism skills. It's the beginning of his Character Development which will be kicked off by him being humbled to hell and back by being possessed by Venom.
  • He's anything but incompetent - he just had an enormous habit of pissing off the wrong people.

Venom will have his Voice of the Legion
The reason why he only has a baritone in the trailer is because Eddie hasn't fully accepted the symbiote yet. Once he does, his voice will become two voices talking in unison.
  • Jossed for the most part, although the ending has Venom open half of his face to show Eddie, and they both say "We...are Venom." in unison. Other than that, it's normally just Eddie and the symbiote chit-chatting in and out of Venom-mode.

Carlton Drake will be Carnage.
Early in the film's development, Word of God confirmed that Carnage would be the Big Bad. And if they're still considering it, then an origin change will be in effect; at the end of the film however, the Carnage symbiote will have ditched Drake and makes its way to Cletus, truly birthing Carnage.
  • Jossed, he's Riot.

However, if Cletus becomes Carnage as per tradition, Drake will get another symbiote for himself (perhaps even a film exclusive one), and the climax will be an one-on-two fight with Venom going up against Carnage and Drake.

  • Maybe Carlton will become Toxin, and near the end of the film, Toxin will find its way to the film's equivalent to Patrick Mulligan.
    • Jossed. Drake is the host to the Big Bad, but it's an unrelated symbiote named Riot.

At some point Eddie will run around with Venom only covering his mouth instead of whole head
There gotta be a reference to his Bane and Mad Max roles.
  • Why? References to the other roles of an actor are the exception, not the rule.
  • Jossed

Agents of SHIELD and/or Defenders will be mentioned or implied
With Sony clearly wanting to tie this film to the MCU without it officially being part of it, whats better way than to invoke the shows, who are likewise stuck in Shrodinger's canon, and are not under Feige's control?
  • Jossed

The movie is a part of the MCU, but...
It takes place between Infinity War and its sequel. Spider-man isn't part of Venom's origin because Spidey is dead. Maybe Brock was inspired by Peter?
  • Given that it takes place in San Francisco, you'd think the Pym crew would be on the case.
  • Or alternatively, Venom will return in a Guardians of the Galaxy film, since Agent Venom was a member through the Avengers.

Eddie's questioning of Carlton Drake's business practices was never meant to happen
When his camera crew wasn't looking, Eddie wrote the thing about the "most vulnerable" down so he could remember it as his trump card for the interview. Tying in with the "incompetent reporter" WMG, this incident will get him fired and kickstart the plot.
  • Confirmed: One of the trailers reveals that Eddie was supposed to be interviewing Carlton Drake about the Life Foundation's shuttle launch, but chose to go off the script and grill him over allegations of illicit experiments.

If ever the film becomes successful, Sony will use it to jumpstart something similar to the Arrowverse
With Venom being a Suspiciously Similar Substitute of Spider-Man in the same way Green Arrow is to Batman
  • Seemingly confirmed, since it's not part of the deal between Sony and Marvel. Whether or not it leads to anything is yet to be determined.

Venom will be a Composite Character
Possibly in an attempt to explain the Royal "We" vocabulary even when speaking separately from Eddie, Venom will be a Composite Character with Hybrid◊, actually a collection of symbiotes, maybe even the entire species in the form of a single sentient blob of goo. Instead of being Venom's children, the Life Foundation Symbiotes will be members of the symbiote species separated from this collective.

Spider-man/Peter Parker does not exist
Spider-man and other Marvel heroes do not exist. Eddie will be the first and only super hero in his universe.

Eddie will not be referred to as "Venom" by characters
I can't picture Tom Hardy's Eddie giving himself a codename. He will be referred to as symbiote or "the monster".
  • Jossed: Eddie calls himself and the symbiote Venom.

Riot will behave similar to Kamen Rider Odin
In the sense that he won't have one permanent host, instead jumping to a new host every time he's defeated. Combining this with above guess about Carlton Drake's symbiote, maybe perhaps Drake will be the final host that Riot jumps to, with his defeat while possessing Drake being his final one. This would allow for them to introduce Riot's powers early on, without spoiling Carlton as Riot being the Final Boss (assuming Carlton gets a symbiote)
  • Confirmed! This was actually strangely almost completely accurate to what happens in the movie! The only part that wasn't 100% was Riot bonding with Drake was shown in one of the trailers

There will be a small jab at Spider-Man's mythology.
While Spider-Man is not to be featured in the film, Sony could always throw in a Shout-Out to him. Something akin to this, specifically:
Character: Why are you doing all of this?
Eddie: Well, you see, we go about it this way. With great power, there must also come...(turns into Venom) great satisfaction.
  • One of the astronauts who brought the symbiotes is called "Jameson". In the ending credits, he's named J. J. Jameson III.
    • That's about as small a jab as can be, but still - confirmed.

The lost San Francisco town from the Lethal Protector comic will be In a sequel.

  • A new villain becomes interested in secrets stored there so Venom has to protect them. It would be interesting setting for a superhero movie.

Nasim Pedrad makes an appearance...
...as a symbiote that has already infected Jenny Slate but remained under the radar by operating "wirelessly", able to spend extended periods physically separate from her host, basically becoming an Evil Twin.

Villains for Sequels:

  • Carnage of course
  • The Jury
  • Lee Price who steals the symbiote and Eddie has to get it back
  • Mister Negative would provide an interesting ethical dilemma for Eddie Brock in a sequel. Should he expose the evil personality's crimes when the good personality is completely unaware of them? During this, he would also have to hold back Venom from attacking him before Eddie has made a decision.
the theatrical release will be rated PG-13, but there will be an R-rated cut released on DVD

Ruben Flesicher is lying about the original plan being a PG-13 rating.
  • As noted on the YMMV page, it's not inconceivable to think director Ruben Fleischer says that he always planned for the movie to be PG-13, despite having actually originally wanted it to get the R rating. He's being forced to claim so by Sony.

Related to the above, if the Sequel is gonna be rated R (complete with it being more Bloodier and Gorier than the first one
Then...Brock Lesnar of all people, will portray Eddie Brock/Venom instead of Tom Hardy reprising his role because he is more brutal and perfect to be Venom in a more Darker and Edgier Venom 2.
Drake is a fan of [PROTOTYPE]
That's why, after bonding with him, Riot uses such similar abilities and weapons.

Spider-Man and the Sin-Eater will be mentioned in the sequel.
the

Anti-Venom is a Decomposite Character.
In the Life Foundation's early trials with the symbiotes, an unnamed symbiote bonds with a rabbit as a perfect match. It's a little hard to tell, but the symbiote looks primarily white with some black highlights like veins. I believe this symbiote to be the movie's version of Anti-Venom, separate from Venom and Eddie and might return in a sequel.

Riot survived the rocket's explosion.
Since Riot is a "team leader" when it comes to symbiotes, he is most likely very hard to kill even by symbiote standards. While Drake is certainly a goner, the Riot symbiote itself survived, although only by small bits - it's taken time to recover its full mass.

Once the sequel comes around, Riot will have spawned different symbiotes - Lasher, Scream, Agony and Phage - all of which going to their respective hosts (the same ones as in the comics)...as Riot finds its own in the name of Trevor Cole. Which means that, coupled by Carnage's uprising, Venom will be having a long night.

Symbiotes reproduce asexually, and Riot was the squad's father and leader.
It would explain how Riot briefly absorbed Venom during the final battle and why Riot was briefly concerned with getting Venom back. Venom was probably the "runt" of the litter, which was why he was a loser on his home planet.
  • Interesting theory, would be an inversion of their relationship from the comics because unless I'm very much mistaken (which is possible, I'm no comics/marvel expert) Venom is Riot's father.

The sequel's villain will be Carnage (duh!) and he will be Venom and Eddie's offspring.
Canonically speaking, Carnage is Venom's offspring and Eddie and Venom produced a spawn together. It would make the battle against Carnage very emotionally charged for both the heroes, with the added twist of Carnage's host corrupting the symbiote rather than vice versa.
  • Don't know about Eddie and Venom producing Carnage "together" (I mean would you say that my tapeworm and I produced all those tapeworm eggs "together?"), but I can easily see that being the plot of the movie. Venom reveals to Eddie all of a sudden that it's "pregnant," and that Venom needs to inject it's child into a suitable host very soon or else Venom will "miscarry." Touble is that Eddie's got a busy schedule right now, so can we talk about it after I interview this serial killer? Huh? You say he's the perfect host? What are youBLLEAARRGHH! OH MY GOD CLETUS I'M SO SORRY!! Hencforth we will occasionally cut to Cletus and Carnage brutally murdering and devouring someone in a back alley ala classic slasher villain tropes. Later the newly-acquired character of Spider Man gets introduced to the story, and he, Venom, and Eddie go around fighting crime as Back-to-Back Badasses, their main conflict being along the liens of Spidey going "Could you please stop freaking eating people?" and Venom going "Why not? They're assholes and I' hungry." "But anyone can be redeemed! I've seen proof!" Then they have to start tracking a serial killer who we know to be Cletus and Carange, but who Venom and Spidey do not know the identity of until near the climax. Eventually they find out, and Eddie keeps going "We have to kill them! It's the only way!" but Venom goes "NO! I can't kill my own child!" and Spidey of course agrees with Venom. Eventually during the climax Carange/Cletus ...does something to make Spidey realize that Killing Him Is The Only Way (maybe he heads for the orphanage or something?), so Spidey grabs the flamethrower. but oh no! Anne has just shown up, and if Spidey kills Carnage now, she'll get caught in the blast! But he has no choice, if he doesn't pull the trigger now, the orphanage will be nommed. So just as Venom charges into the scene with a Big "NO!", spidey lets out a single tear and a soft "I'm sorry," and torches Carnage, Cletus, and Anne. And that's how we get the classic one-sided rivalry between Venom and Spidey.

Cletus Kasady is Mickey Knox from Natural Born Killers.
They are the same guy. After his wife Mallory was killed during a police shootout, he changed his name to Cletus. The guy even acts and speaks like Mickey Knox.

The symbiote is romantically attracted to Brock.
Anne wasn't in control when she kissed Brock. The symbiote secretly has feelings for Eddie, and the kiss was HIS idea.

Carnage was a serial killer on the Symbiote homeworld
If Riot is a "team leader" who could kill Venom easily, then Carnage needs to be something more. A good way to do this would be making him a criminal among his own people. Maybe it could turn out that Carnage was too crazy even for Riot. This would also continue the trend of Symbiotes being similar to their hosts.

Cletus already has the Carnage symbiote
Why would Kassidy request specifically to be interviewed by Eddie? I mean yeah he would know who he was from reading the paper, but why would he specifically ask for him? Given the ominous way he says "there's gonna be carnage" it sounded more like a warning to Venom than a threat in general. When I posed this WMG to my wife she asked "wouldn't that cause Venom to have some red flags if Carnage was already there?" but Carnage is supposed to be more powerful than Venom, isn't it possible that, given that, he can mask his presence from him?

The sequel will never show Carnage’s kills onscreen...and will be ''even scarier'’ for it.
It’s been more or less confirmed that venom 2 will still be pg-13 despite carnage. That means not showing graphic violence in the open. However, it’s very easy to get around these limits.

The other two symbiotes didn't die
Of the four symbiotes found by the Life Foundation, two of them supposedly died without finding suitable hosts. It's possible that they instead went into a state of suspended animation, similar to what some Earth organisms do when in unsuitable conditions. The sequel will have these symbiotes become active again and find hosts, allowing for more symbiote-powered characters without needing Venom to reproduce (as in the comics) or more symbiotes to come to Earth.

Venom didn't realize exactly how perfect of a host Eddie was.
Venom assumed saving Eddie's life in the climax was a Heroic Sacrifice, because most of his biomass would be burned off, and the few bits that remained in Eddie, he believed, would not be sufficient to recover and eventually die off. What Venom didn't realize was that Eddie was so good of a match, and with a good enough match a few leftover bits of a symbiote can eventually regenerate and restore the whole creature. It took a bit of time (and likely a lot of calorie consumption on Eddie's part), but no one was more surprised than Venom that it survived.

The qualities that makes a "perfect host" are mental, not genetic.
Venom bonds to Eddie because, as he himself states, he is "a loser" on his homeworld. Riot - the arrogant "team leader" who was in charge of an interplanetary expedition to invade a new world - bonds to the similarly arrogant Drake who is also trying to launch an expedition to find a new world. This would also explain how Riot made his way all the way to Drake - he probably saw him on TV and realized that he would make an ideal host.

Peter Parker/Spider-Man will be a main character in the sequel, whether as a companion or a rival to Eddie Brock/Venom

Just putting this here with the knowledge it'll be probably Jossed.

  • Eddie might be allowed back into New York after reporting about Venom (the same way Peter manages to get nice shots of Spider-Man), and would get an opportunity to make a report about Spider-Man's "terrible trail of destruction" if Jameson is the one who made him come.
  • In contrast to most versions, Peter and Eddie will be friends, either in or out of the mask, or both. Venom might even notice Peter's superhuman abilities and comment about whether or not he'd make a good host (just to annoy Eddie).

This movie is a sci-fi prolonged "Sunday" comic of Garfield
  • Jon is Eddie Brock.
  • Liz is Anne Weying.
  • Garfield is Venom.
  • Lasagna is chocolate-covered tater tots.

Sony will force this movie into the MCU, with or without Disney
Given Disney and Sony broke their Spidey deal, and the next Spidey movie will be a sequel to FFH with or without Disney, Sony will take this chance to introduce (or at least reference) Tom Hardy's Venom on it.
  • I think that what's most likely to happen is that they will introduce a "one-way" Canon Weld via a Lawyer-Friendly Cameo of the MCU spidey (or perhaps this incarnation of Spidey will, separately, be canon to both the Venom series and the MCU, sorta like how Conan the Barbarian is canon to both Marvel Comics and the Lovecraft Mythos). Might even hire the same actor.

the sequel will have Venom deliver this line in refference to some criminal he ate.
"I had his liver with some fava beans and a bag of frozen tater tots!"

This movie will be Retconned to take place either before Captain America: Civil War or between Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame
With the new deal between Marvel and Sony allowing for Spidey to appear in both this universe and the MCU, it's possible. Since Venom and Spidey are so closely tied together in the comics, and Venom was introduced during a time when the MCU Spidey was dead, this creates problems. With clues in Morbius (2022) indicating it takes place after Spider-Man: Far From Home they could use the excuse that the reason Spidey isn't tied to Venom here is because he was brought to Earth either before he got his powers, or while he was dead but before his resurrection. Edited to make more sense since Homecoming takes place AFTER Civil War and Peter had his powers for 6 months by that point.

Symbiotes base the form they take when transforming a host on what the host sees as powerful.
That's why Eddie and Carlton Drake become hulking monsters with body-builder physiques, because they are (presumably straight) men in Western society, and they see that as an image of physical power, but when Anne is transformed, she becomes tall and supermodel-esque, because for a (presumably straight) woman in Western culture, that is seen as powerful.

The sequel will be slightly better than the first movie.
Well, with how it's been received and its criticism, and with their plans for a Venom cinematic universe, the makers of Venom will draw from that criticism and make improvements to the sequel.

The reason why Venom chooses to side with the humans and live on Earth is because the people actually have kindness and compassion which most of its kind do not have and that it is treated nicely by the humans there even though they are scared of it for a good reason.
Venom at first was willing to go along with the plan to have Earth taken over by its kind and the humans there to be taken over or killed by them but however over the six months it stayed there it was bonded to homeless humans who have been taken in as test subjects and saw they were treated the same as it because Venom is an outcast on its homeworld and eventually after going from Maria to Eddie Brock it decides to use Eddie at first to help it with the plan to have Earth destroyed with everyone dead on it but however though it was at a restaurant full of people for it to eat as it is very hungry it realizes that it no longer has the ability to attack them at first sight, instead it just looks for anything that might be alive but not human so that it can eat them and even protects the civilians from the Life Foundiation's forces, though it attacks the SWAT team that was attacking it, it leaves them alive instead of killing them even when it's about to eat the one that kept shooting at it, it stops itself from doing it when Anne screams at what it was about to do, later on after being seperated from Eddie it bonds with Anne and finally realizes that the humans do not deserve to be taken over or killed by its kind so it decides to help Anne to rescue Eddie and after bonding with Eddie again it decides to help him stop Riot from bringing their kind to Earth now realizing that it prefers to live there in peace with the humans instead of destroying it and killing everyone on it.

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