Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 were two amazing movies, but Spider-Man 3...well, it didn't quite manage to live up to the high bar set by its predecessors. The threequel had lots of issues, including a bizarre twist that saw Sandman revealed as Uncle Ben's true killer, a Green Goblin who looked like a snowboarder, and a take on Venom that definitely left comic book fans underwhelmed.
Many of those baffling decisions were forced on director Sam Raimi by Sony Pictures, and more specifically, producer Avi Arad. Talking to Uproxx about Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the filmmaker reflected on what went wrong with Eddie Brock in the 2007 blockbuster.
"It was really more just that I didn’t understand the character that well. It wasn’t close to my heart," Raimi candidly admitted. "The best thing I like about Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s Spider-Man is that they made relatable characters that I understand. Even if they were confused, like Norman Osborn, they still have goodness in their heart. They want them to do the right thing."
"When I read about Venom, which I hadn’t read as a kid," the director continued, "I had to catch up on it when they wanted him to be in the movie. I didn’t recognize enough humanity within that character to be able to identify with him properly. That’s really what it boils down to."
Raimi admitted that he hasn't watched the Venom movies, but said it "makes sense" that Sony has approached the dynamic between Eddie and his symbiote in a comedic way, adding that he's "glad they were able to make a success out of that" (honestly, we get the impression he doesn't care).
It's unclear when Spider-Man and Venom will clash on screen again. At the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home, Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock was returned to his own world, but a piece of his symbiote was left behind. If the MCU has its own Eddie, then the two might cross paths as soon as Spider-Man 4...