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New footage of Tom Hardy on the 'Venom' set reveals more interesting plot details

Will we be seeing She-Venom?

New footage of Tom Hardy on the 'Venom' set reveals more interesting plot details
26 January 2018

Tom Hardy and Michelle Williams have been spotted filming scenes from the upcoming Venom on the streets of New York City. 

Williams has recently been confirmed to be playing Anne Weying, the ex-wife of Hardy’s character Eddie Brock. And, yep, in this brief snippet captured by a passerby, they seem to be having a bit of a disagreement, as exes are wont to do.

Williams might have revealed some plot details in a recent interview, by specifying what she isn’t doing in the film. See, in the comics, Weying got shot and had her life saved by the alien symbiote Venom (there’s a lot of weird shit in the comics, check out our guide to what’s likely to be happening in the movie here) - a side-effect of this was that she became She-Venom. And, because we’re talking about (a) comics in (b) the ‘90s, She-Venom was obviously ridiculously chesty. 

Was this really necessary?

Side note: That image is exactly what someone who thinks comics are really stupid thinks comics are like. Stuff like this just makes it hard to like comics - it’s obviously intended to be at least slightly titillating, despite being a big-fanged alien spider monster. It’s almost as though no female character can exist without being objectified, even if they’re a big-fanged alien spider monster. It’s depressing, patronising, insulting and embarrassing for everyone. Things are a bit better these days, but there’s still a fairly substantial section of the comic artist community who think women’s clothing forms into two separate skin-tight breasts, returning to the sternum in between. It’s deeply, deeply strange. The amount of time they spend studying and perfecting the shape of, say, abs, you’d think they could work out that fabric isn’t the same as paint.

(Venom is, of course, a character where they could almost come somewhere near justifying this absurdity. Venom’s outfit is a living alien symbiote that bonds with its wearer, so being unnaturally, preposterously form-fitting isn’t out of the question. But if the treatment of She-Venom’s breasts is acceptable, you should always be able to see regular male Venom’s penis and testicles, either swinging between his legs or strapped tightly against one of them. Be consistent in the tightness of your living alien symbiote costumes, you jerks.)

Williams has said that her character “isn’t being digitized”, suggesting that the movie’s Weying isn’t destined for the costume. Or it’s being set up to happen in a sequel. Or it is happening and she’s full-on lying about it. What does seem to be happening, though, is Weying getting fired - that particular type of cardboard box always means ‘just been sacked’ in films.

Where’s she being sacked from, though? And what’s she writing down, in the bit where Tom Hardy’s unhelpfully manly shoulders block what’s going on? In the comics, Weying is a lawyer and Brock is a journalist - she could be giving him a lead of some kind. In the Lethal Protector storyline that the film is said to be using, Brock came into conflict with a paranoid survivalist group called the Life Foundation. That sounds like the kind of organisation that would have lawyers. She could be working for them, and have just been sacked by their leader, Carlton Drake, said to be played by Riz Ahmed.

Or, are they pre-exes in this? Variety reckons Williams is Hardy’s love interest in the film. It definitely doesn’t look like she’s giving him her number though - she seems livid.

We’ll find out the answers to everything when Venom is released on 5 October.