Love or hate the franchise (and there's good reason for both), there's no denying that Sony Pictures’ Venom trilogy was a major success for the studio.
While the movies never received much love from critics (each instalment also made less than its predecessor at the box office), the Lethal Protector grossed over $1.8 billion combined across three—mostly—Spider-Man-less solo outings. That's not a character likely to be left on the shelf for long.
There had been some talk of Venom 4 evolving into an Agent Venom movie, but after Kraven the Hunter bombed, the studio put all its live-action Marvel adaptations on hold. Recently, it was reported that Eddie Brock is on his way back to the big screen in an R-rated animated Venom feature. There are also plans for Venom to appear in Marvel Animation's Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Season 2.
Merchandise for the Venom movies was always fairly limited. We got a handful of action figures, but that was largely it. Now, though, LEGO is set to release a new Venom Bust based on the Sony Pictures franchise.
According to The Brick Fan, it will be released in stores on July 3, retailing for $49.99 and featuring 413 pieces. Crucially for collectors, this will be the first time Tom Hardy's Lethal Protector gets the LEGO Minifigure treatment.
"That was the first real Spider-Man-affiliated movie," Venom director Ruben Fleischer explained last November. "We were all trying to figure out exactly what that wants to be. 'Venom' was always defined by Spider-Man—our movie couldn’t feature Spider-Man. So it created an interesting challenge."
"From my memory of it, granted it was a while ago, but from my memory of it, it was always distinct from Spider-Man," the filmmaker added, confirming that the movie wasn't made with an eventual crossover in mind. "Maybe there was the possibility of them crossing paths down the road, but inherent to ours was that it couldn’t be defined by that."
"It’s funny because in the comics, Venom has a spider on his chest, and that’s because he derives from Spider-Man. We had to come up with a whole new origin story and actually create a different pattern on his chest, unique for the film, because it wouldn’t have made sense if he had a spider on his chest if he had no affiliation with Spider-Man," he added, sharing that "it all worked out the way it was supposed to," given the franchise's eventual financial success.
Venom first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #300 in 1988. Initially conceived as an alien symbiote that bonded with Spider-Man, Eddie Brock later became host to the alien costume after being introduced as a disgraced journalist seeking revenge on Spider-Man.
Will you be picking up this Venom LEGO set when it goes on sale this July?