Tom Hardy’s Venom Character to be Done Through Motion Capture

With filming on Sony Pictures‘ Venom having begun, it was still unclear how filmmakers planned to bring the black symbiote to life. Well wonder no more, as motion capture pioneer Andy Serkis (War for the Planet of the Apes, Lord of the Rings) has spilled the beans to Yahoo that actor Tom Hardy will be bringing the Venom character to life through performance capture technology.

“The time has come that people understand that performance capture is a technology, not a genre of acting,” Serkis said. “Acting is acting, and the more actors – like Steve Zahn… and Karin Konoval who plays Maurice in ‘War For The Planet of the Apes’ – the more A-list actors that come on board, like Mark Rylance playing ‘The BFG,’ or a lot of actors in the new Marvel films… Tom Hardy is playing a new character using performance capture. It all points up ‘what is the nature of acting?’ and there is no difference between acting wearing a costume and make up, or wearing a motion capture suit. That’s plain and simple, it just needs awarding bodies to understand that.”

Indeed, good portions of Marvel Studios characters like Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther and, of course, Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk are now being done entirely through motion capture rather than with costumes, prosthetics, etc. While none of those actors are by any means slouches, it will be fascinating to see what a top-shelf thesp like Hardy does to take performance capture to the next level.

Co-starring with Tom Hardy in the Venom movie are Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed, Reid Scott, Jenny Slate, and Scott Haze.

Writers Scott Rosenberg (Pain & Gain, Jumanji), Jeff Pinkner (The Amazing Spider-Man 2) and Kelly Marcel (Fifty Shades of Grey) wrote the script for Venom, which has Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland, Gangster Squad) directing. It will not be a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach are producing the movie, along with Amy Pascal.

First appearing in the comic book series as an alien costume worn by Spider-Man in Marvel‘s The Amazing Spider-Man #252 in 1984, it was several years before the creature left Peter Parker and merged with photographer Eddie Brock, forming the antihero known as Venom. Since then, the character has appeared in a variety of different forms and bonded with several different hosts. In the Ultimate Marvel Universe, the suit has a more terrestrial origin, created by Parker and Brock’s scientist parents in an attempt to cure cancer. More recently, the Venom symbiote has been moving between hosts, including Mac Gargan (aka The Scorpion) and Peter Parker’s old high school rival, Flash Thompson.

Venom previously appeared on the big screen, played by Topher Grace in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 in 2007.

Venom is scheduled for an October 5, 2018 release.