Venom Director Opens Up About The Marvel Film’s Negative Reviews

Venom director Ruben Fleischer opens up about the negative reviews his Marvel film was saddled with in 2018. Today, Sony’s budding Marvel universe is busier than it has ever been. The studio is turning its sights on April release Morbius, which stars Jared Leto and will further expand this alternate MCU. This comes after the blockbuster release of Spider-Man: No Way Home in December, an actual MCU movie that united Sony’s world with Marvel Studios’ through the rules of the multiverse, and Venom: Let There Be Carnage from the fall. Sony is also currently moving forward with Kraven the Hunter, a new film starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson slated to premiere in 2023.

Before all that, though, Sony’s revamped Marvel universe just contained a grumpy journalist and his symbiotic life partner. Venom arrived in theaters in late 2018, directed by Fleischer and starring Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock. The movie was a blockbuster success, earning $853.3 million worldwide and winning over fans who were entertained by the absurd nature of Eddie and Venom’s bond. Critics weren’t nearly as impressed with Venom, though; the movie earned mostly negative reviews, leading to a 30% critical score on Rotten Tomatoes.

For Fleischer, the negative reviews stung even as Venom found success elsewhere. During an interview with ComicBook.com‘s podcast Phase Zero while promoting his new film Uncharted, Fleischer described the negative reception to the film as “a bummer,” particularly because he knows fans loved it. He now is disappointed Venom will always be associated with this perceived failure. At the same time, Fleischer truly is glad that audiences enjoyed it so much. He said:

“The critical reaction, I’m not going to lie, is a bummer just because you work so hard on something. And I know, having watched it with audiences, how much they enjoyed it. So, it was a little surprising to me how negative they were. And I do think it’s unwarranted because the audiences, as you said, really loved the film. Otherwise, I don’t think it would’ve been quite the success it was. So, it was disheartening, for sure, that it has this kind of association.

“Hopefully, over time, people will… There’s plenty of movies that are beloved that, when they came out, were panned by critics. It’s just unfortunate that RottenTomatoes exists as this aggregate that then, forever, will have an assigned rating to a thing. That being said, it is what it is. And if people like the movie, that’s all I care about. And, hopefully, the same will be true of Uncharted. I made it for the audience. I made it to be a really fun, escapist, action packed adventure. And, at the end of the day, that’s who I made the movie for. And I’ll be proud and excited if fans and audiences love the film.”

There’s long been a disparity between what critics think of movies and what audiences do, particularly when it comes to large and silly blockbusters like Venom. Many have debated whether Rotten Tomatoes makes things worse for films that get a larger number of poor reviews, and it sounds like Fleischer at least doesn’t believe it helps. Nevertheless, Venom won big time with the people whose opinions truly matter: The fans. Considering how reception to Venom’s previous onscreen depiction was far more mixed, it’s safe to say Venom overall came away looking really, really good.

It’s also in some pretty good company, as the 2021 sequel had a similar fate. This time directed by Andy Serkis, Venom: Let There Be Carnage didn’t win over critics, but it did earn raves from audiences. It earned the best opening weekend of the coronavirus pandemic at the time and once again proved that poor reviews aren’t enough to dissuade those who truly love something. Hopefully, Fleischer continues to focus on the good parts of Venom‘s legacy and brushes those negative sentiments away.

Source: ComicBook.com

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Rachel Labonte
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Rachel LaBonte is a news, feature, and movie review writer for Screen Rant with a deep passion for film and television. A graduate of Emerson College, she majored in Media Arts Production while specializing in screenwriting. She’s been a writer ever since high school when she realized she was rather good at it and joined as many entertainment news clubs as she could while in school. Most notably, she wrote for Emerson’s website Emertainment Monthly, and one of her film reviews won an Evvy (Emerson’s student awards) for Best Review. Her deep love of movies led to her working at a movie theater for five years, which she loved despite the angry customers. An avid reader who constantly buys books before reading the ones she already owns, Rachel is a huge fan of superheroes (especially of the Marvel variety) and wizards and will likely never be able to catch up on all the movies/TV shows she longs to watch.

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