Scrapbook #1: Venom 3, Podcasting, and the 'demise' of the Sony-Verse
PLUS: FTNC Update, Alan Wake 2, etc.
Hello, my dear readers.
This is the inaugural issue of what I like to call “Scrapbook,” where I collect a bunch of random things I find interesting and attempt a looser, more traditional-style newsletter that hopefully will help me publish more and faster (I kinda wanted Variations to be that, but it ended up becoming more essayistic over time.)
So, here, you will find cut passages from my essays, collected short thoughts I have about film and pop culture, links and comments about what I’m reading, etc.
On Venom 3 and Livestream Podcasting
Last month, I saw Venom: The Last Dance (2024, dir. Kelly Marcel). My general impression is that, while it doesn’t live up to the first movie, it is nonetheless a considerable improvement over the mangled Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021, dir. Andy Serkis), which I thought was borderline unwatchable due to its bad editing.
The first half-hour of the new sequel similarly suffers from evident budget cuts, with some rushed sequences (eg. the plane escape) and a plot development that blatantly serves as a cost-saving measure, but thankfully after that it settles into a nice groove and pulls off some really cool stuff, especially in the end. The climax here, with multiple symbiotes battling the giant hungry xenophage creatures, is really well-done and that’s clearly where the money went.
The Eddy/Venom relationship is again the best part of the movie, which doesn’t skimp this time around on the emotion. I offer a LOT more in-depth thoughts about the movie in my conversation with my colleague Elvis Dutan on the Unsourced Wall Radio Podcast, which you can check out below:
BTW, I think this is probably my best instance of actually speaking in a podcast. Earlier, I found myself talking too quickly while saying a lot of unnecessary words and sometimes not being able to put my thoughts into coherent sentences. These are the sorts of things you can probably cut out or mitigate by editing a podcast before uploading it but you can’t remove it during a livestream.
So, prior to this session, I wanted to make a concerted effort to slow down, pick my words more carefully and provide some thought-out critiques. And it worked!
I don’t feel at all mortified or embarrassed to hear myself talk here. And now I am more confident about doing more podcasts in the future. Not sure I want to make them myself - I don’t have the technical skill to pull that off (at least right now) but I do feel that I want to do more guest spots and provide my thoughts on movies.
So, give this one a listen. And really, listen to some of Elvis’ other recordings.
He knows his stuff really well.
Short Thoughts on the film
I really wish they didn’t have that opening prologue sequence with Knull, which is honestly a boring, completely unnecessary scene that only exists for the benefit of the audience.
As expected, folks online made a big deal out of the differences between Eddie’s opening scene in this film and the post-credit sequence of NWH. I myself think it doesn’t mean anything significant, other than the fact that this is a different movie made at a different time. I’m more interested in knowing how they made this scene. As in, was it reshot? Or did they use alternate takes from the post-credit sequence? Or a bit of both?
What really fascinates me also is the difference in attitude. In the NWH version, Venom seems really disappointed at being sent back before actually having a chance to do anything. In the TLD version, his line of dialogue before he’s sent back is cut, but right after he returns home, he yells: “I am so done with this multiverse shit!” That is a funny line, but it’s one that also encapsulates how audience perception of the Multiverse saga changed over time.
I'm increasingly convinced that editing issues are largely due to studios trying to save money on expensive VFX-heavy sequences in the aftermath of Covid and inflation. Plus, the film had to contend with a shut down due to the SAG strike.
Can't help but imagine the titular ‘last dance’ scene between Venom and Mrs. Cheng being set to 'Under Pressure' akin to what we saw in Aftersun.
Was really confused by Juno Temple’s and Clark Backo’s characters. Never quite got their motives and what their exact arcs in the movie were supposed to be.
The second half was really stronger than the first.
Stephen Graham’s new green symbiote was pretty cool but the character of Detective Mulligan felt a little wasted. Interestingly, they never resolve what actually happened to the original or true ‘Toxin,’ which supposedly just left Mulligan for unexplained reasons.
I suspect they had to do this because Graham's schedule allowed him to film only one or two scenes (which is why he's basically in that one room the whole time). So, they knew they couldn't do justice to a big character like Toxin and gave him a new symbiote.
Honestly, I'm still super confused about symbiote reproduction in these movies cause they never really explained in Carnage how it works.
I really hope Kraven is a hit so we can get more R-rated Venom-verse movies in the future and hopefully R-rated extended cuts of the Venom trilogy.
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Rumors of the Sony-Verse’s Death are Greatly Exagerrated
Speaking of Venom and Sony, you’ve probably heard some variation of the claim that “Sony’s Spider-Man Universe is dead.” The truth, of course, is that this is a typical case of broken media telephony and misleading if not outright deceptive headline-making. See, two days ago, Umberto Gonzalez of The Wrap published a new article about behind-the-scenes changes to Sony’s approach to its Marvel universe.
I admittedly haven’t read the original post, as it’s behind an expensive paywall, but the gist (based on all the synopses available) is that Sony has put on “pause” its film plans for the ancillary Spider-Man characters. Thus, if there were still plans to possibly make standalone movies or shows about characters like the superhero Silk or the antiheroine Black Cat, they’ve been shelved following the critical and commercial failures of Morbius and Madame Web.
That, combined with the title of the article, surely means that Sony’s failed completely at its Cinematic Universe and is closing it down, right?
Except, as it turns out, the post also reports that Sony is working still on Spider-Man titles - the next live-action Spider-Man movie starring Tom Holland (who is also up for Disney’s Avengers Doomsday), the animated sequel Beyond the Spider-verse, and the live-action spinoff series of the Spider-verse movies called Spider-Noir.
Now, I don’t know whether article actually gets into this, but the simple fact is that all three of these properties are constituent parts of what Sony currently terms as the “SSU” (Sony’s Spider-Man Universe). They have been that way since at least March 2019. The SSU essentially has three branches anchored by three main characters - the MCU Crossovers (Peter Parker), the Spider-Verse (Miles Morales), and the Venom-Verse (Eddie Brock).* It is really only the Venom-verse branch that is apparently being put on hold ‘for now,’ with no new installments planned beyond Kraven The Hunter.
*Please note that this is my own terminology and not Sony’s.
Thus, contrary to what the headline leads viewers to believe, the SSU in actuality isn’t ending at all. Rather, having taken stock of what’s worked and what didn’t, Sony is changing direction and seeking to build on the stuff that’s most likely to be well received and make the most money.
The studio’s evaluation of what to do further with the Venom-verse branch will certainly depend on the performance of Kraven, which is just now opening in theaters. Now, I’m not going to deny that things don’t look good. The film is only coming to about 3000 screens and initial box office projections are pretty low. Nonetheless, even if Kraven bombs, it is not a guarantee that nothing will be done with the Venom-verse branch going forward. Odds are high that Venom, the branch’s most successful franchise, will be part of whatever future plan Sony has in mind for the SSU now.
And the company has indeed established multiple characters in this branch that it could bring into the other branches at some point in the future (past the point we thought we’d ever see them again) for a big crossover event in the style of Avengers, much as they have done with Raimi-verse and Webb-verse Spider-Man characters.
My guess is that, given how closely the Tom Holland Spider-Man is tied to the MCU, Sony will now try to reorient the SSU as a whole around the Spider-verse branch, creating new spinoffs around characters introduced in its mainline titles. The Spider-Noir series could very well be a proof of concept in that regard. If it succeeds, more Spider-verse shows and movies will likely follow. And I wouldn’t be surprised if we indeed see a live-action Miles Morales sequel to the animated films.
To anyone that’s a fan of the Venom-verse branch of the SSU, of course, the news is still disappointing. I personally don’t think any of the Venom-verse pictures thus far have gotten a fair shake from critics.
Many of them seemed offended by the very idea that Sony could make standalone Spider-Man-related characters without Spider-Man (even though a good deal of them have already anchored their own individual series in the comics) and sometimes trumped up controversies just to have something to complain about (like the myth that Vulture claimed he wanted to fight Spider-Man in the Morbius credit scenes.)*
*I’m a staunch defender of Morbius and think Madame Web, even with all of its blatant ADR, isn’t anywhere near as bad as some make it out to be. It’s certainly better than Carnage.
On Alan Wake 2
So, I recently finished playing Finnish game company Remedy Entertainment’s Alan Wake 2 (haven’t gotten through all the DLC yet though) on the PS5. Really, if you like survival horror, David Lynch, or True Detective, I recommend you give this a shot.
This is a bold, beautiful, surreal meta horror game about the power of narrative and the connection between art and reality. It can be funny and terrifying in equal measure. And though I could complain about the occasional bug or the slightly penultimate chapter, I think this is a true masterpiece and a work that Remedy had been building to for years. I admit I haven’t played all of their works, but the general sense I’m getting is that this title is the culmination of years of trial-and-error, iteration-and-improvement, a grand summary of the studio’s creative ambition to blend together live action filmmaking with gameplay.
I mean, my God, at one point, you get to play through an elaborate musical number:
What’s sad is that, despite all the accolades it’s received, Wake 2 hasn’t really sold that many copies. I mean, sales aren’t bad exactly, but the game hasn’t become a breakout success and after a year still hasn’t reached the level at which it’s recouped its costs and generated a profit. And this is sad, because we absolutely need more weird and experimental AAA titles like this.
Btw, my colleague
wrote an amazing poetic review of the game last year that encapsulate her thoughts on the title.I couldn’t help but add a little bit of my own text to the end in a comment:
You are you are you realizing—you've been
To a deeper, darker ocean green
With waves both wilder and more serene
On and off Again and again and again
FTNC Updates
As mentioned before, I have been going through a backlog and adding newsletters to the Film and Television Newsletter directory. Here are the most recent additions:
What I’m Reading/Responding to
A really cool post by
on a sequel, half of which was composed of footage from its predecessor. It could’ve been worse, cause the producer didn’t want to initially have new footage in it at all!
My comment:
Never heard of this before! SNDN 2 sounds like a TV clip show episode! Footage recycling is a fascinating thing - that's partially how they made a Bruce Lee movie after his death with Game of Death (1978). But to not even shoot anything new at all?! How the hell did that guy think this plan would work?
But What about you?Any thoughts on the Sony-verse situation? What will the future of Spider-Man be? Will Venom et al. ever fight Knull? Please,
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Hey hey, congrats on being on a podcast! It's hard work and you sound good :)
Thanks so much for the shout out! Hope you and your readers get a chance to watch that holiday "classic" this month. 😂