‘Venom’ Director Opens Up About the Struggles of Creating the Character’s Origin Without Spider-Man

Ruben Fleischer, the director of Venom, recently spoke about the creative hurdles he faced while making the 2018 hit. During an interview on The Playlist’s Discourse Podcast, Fleischer opened up about how tough it was to tell Venom’s origin story without using Spider-Man, who is usually a key part of the character’s background.

The filmmaker explained that building a movie around Venom without any direct link to Spider-Man forced the team to come up with something new.

“That was the first real Spider-Man-affiliated movie,” Fleischer said. “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.”

Fleischer shared that the separation from Spider-Man wasn’t a late change but part of the plan from the beginning. “From my memory of it, it was always distinct from Spider-Man,” he said. “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.”

That creative gap even affected Venom’s design. In the comics, Venom’s costume features a large white spider, a symbol of his connection to Spider-Man. The movie couldn’t use that, so the team had to come up with a new design. “It’s funny because in the comics, ‘Venom’ has a spider on his chest, and that’s because he derives from Spider-Man,” Fleischer explained. “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.”

Despite these challenges, Fleischer said the team leaned into what made the story fun and unique. He wanted the movie to balance dark moments with humor. “Something that people love about ‘Venom’ is that he’s funny,” he said. “You know what I mean? It doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s kind of a ridiculous premise that you have an alien living inside you and sharing space with you.”

He also mentioned that classic movies like All of Me and An American Werewolf in London inspired his approach. “I kind of leaned into the—I don’t know if it’s really body horror—but those films were big inspirations. Both are tonally on the more humorous side of things,” he said. Fleischer praised Tom Hardy for bringing that strange mix of humor and darkness to life, saying Hardy’s performance made the film stand out.

When asked about reports of too many studio executives interfering in creative decisions, Fleischer didn’t see it that way. “I’m really proud of the way that the movie turned out, and the process was a collaboration, like all studio movies are,” he said. “I think anyone who claims from any of the studios that they’re making $200 million movies and they’re singular voices is probably not totally accurate.”

In the end, Fleischer is happy with how things turned out. Venom became a massive success, earning over $850 million worldwide and kicking off Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. “It all worked out the way it was supposed to,” he said.

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