Tom Hardy Trying To Make An Epic Marvel Crossover Happen
Tom Hardy wants to make a Marvel crossover happen and this one would really bridge a couple of different comic book universes
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Tom Hardy is somewhat the face of a comic book franchise universe in his own right, though it isn’t exactly the first one that comes to mind when thinking about the genre. And now, it sure looks like he wants to get a massive crossover going that would merge two big storylines and really bring almost all of Marvel into one set of stories. In an interview with Esquire, Tom Hardy came out and said that he was interested in bridging some of the gap, so to speak, and making sure that his Venom character and Tom Holland’s Spider-Man overlap and share the screen together.
In the interview, Tom Hardy was asked about his character of Eddie Brock / Venom in the Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters (SPUMC) and whether the thought had ever crossed his mind about whether he wanted to appear in the same film as Marvel’s Spider-Man. Hardy gave a longer answer, but it is pretty obvious where his mind is on this one. Namely, he wants it to happen. Check out what he, in part, had to say during the interview.
I would be remiss if I wasn’t trying to steer any kind of connectivity…I wouldn’t be doing the job if I wasn’t awake and open to any opportunity or eventuality or be excited by that. Obviously, that’s a large canyon to leap, to be bridged by one person alone, and it would take a much higher level of diplomacy and intelligence, sitting down and talking, to take on an arena such as that…Should both sides be willing, and it be beneficial to both sides, I don’t see why it couldn’t be. I hope and strongly, with both hands, push, eagerly, towards that potential, and would do anything to make that happen, within what’s right in business.
Now, just because Tom Hardy wants it doesn’t mean it is going to happen. Far from it and the actor definitely knows this to be the case. It can’t just be spoken into existence because there are a variety of character ownership loopholes to clear and get through. He knows as much. But we have also started to see inroads along these lines between the SPUMC and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so there is definitely an appetite on a high level. For starters, consider that Spider-Man: No Way Home is set to feature a number of different villains from past web-slinger iterations, guys like Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus and Jamie Foxx as Electro, among others, who were never part of the MCU.
And Tom Hardy also references that Tom Holland’s Spider-Man himself is the result of a deal struck between Sony and Marvel to get the latter into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was pretty imperative to have him be part of the larger context of stories and both studios saw the mutually beneficial nature of making it happen.
For Tom Hardy, his Venom is still confined to a Sony world that is building out a franchise of movies around the villains in Spider-Man’s universe. To go this direction and never ultimately meet Spider-Man on screen would be a bit weird, though they have begun setting things up to have the stories standalone. The first flick Venom was a success in its own right and the follow-up Venom: Let There Be Carnage is due out this fall. It looks every bit a dark story that still has Hardy-as-Brock dealing with battles on a number of different fronts.
Plus, Tom Hardy isn’t the only villain in this world. We are also soon going to get Jared Leto as Morbius, a film that has long since completed but has been delayed for years because of the pandemic. There are also plans to introduce Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Kraven the Hunter as well. This is just too many Spider-Man adversaries to not have them all clash at some point. Tom Hardy understands this and this most recent interview was him just priming the pump a little.