Tom Hardy has revealed that he was “close” to starring in a crossover film between his character Venom and Spider-man.
The British actor played Eddie Brock, aka Venom, for three films between 2018 and 2024. The character is one of Spider-man’s most formidable villains from the comics, but the big screen version focused on Brock, making him a sympathetic anti-hero. Brock appears in a credits scene during 2021’s Spider-man: No Way Home, but the pair never shared the screen together.
Hardy bowed out with last year’s Venom: The Last Dance, making any chance of his Venom meeting Spidey unlikely. Speaking on The Discourse Podcast, Hardy said his children were disappointed that there was no crossover, and when asked what happened replied: “I don’t know how to answer that question”.
Without giving a specific reason, he alluded to studio politics being the reason why it never came to light, and did share that it very nearly happened. “We got close,” he said. “We got as close as I could possibly imagine getting, apart from doing a film together, which I would have loved to have done because that just means so much fun”.
When asked what he wanted from any potential project, he replied: “Fundamentally, for me, it would be for the kids. Because, you know, as much as adults love superhero films, as you can tell by the box office when they’re successful, I think I’m constantly reminded by children how important these characters are. And they don’t know why their favourite characters aren’t in films together”.
Venom, as well as the standalone Spider-man films, are produced Sony, and while there is crossover with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which Tom Holland’s Peter Parker appears in, there are restrictions as to what they are able to do with their world.
Hardy explained: “We were given a set of boundaries, and we were just really privileged to be able to play with a much-beloved IP like Venom in a way that we were allowed to play, and in that (regard), we did what we could and what we loved doing”.
He continued: “We poured all of ourselves into it within the remits of what we were allowed to do with him. And so the enjoyment of the work outweighed the limits of our possibilities with him because we just focused on what we were allowed to do. And we loved doing it”.