Venom Director Is Excited to See the Character and Spider-Man Cross Over

Venom director Ruben Fleischer is bullish on what will happen when Sony’s Venom finally meets Spider-Man. Fleischer, who directed the first film, spoke with Fandom promoting Zombieland: Double Tap and weighed in on the seeming certainty that Tom Holland’s Peter Parker will eventually come face to face with Tom Hardy’s antihero. Some highlights are below:

On the films leading into a Spider-Man/Venom crossover: “That’s where it’s all going to lead. And that’s the exciting thing, because we changed the origin of Venom … in the comics, he evolved from Spider-Man but because of the Marvel-Sony thing we weren’t able to that. And so the thing I think it’s building towards, and will be exciting to see, is when they actually do confront each other.”

On the reaction to the film: “I was really bummed that people didn’t like [the first film] because it’s a crowdpleasing movie and I’m not sure if there was just blowback against Sony or people just worship Marvel. But I was really surprised that the critics [were gunning for it] because audiences really enjoyed the movie. And so many people who’ve seen it just appreciated that it was a fun superhero movie. So I was a little surprised. I don’t know what they were expecting … I was kinda happy to let somebody else take over. And I’m excited to see what he [Andy Serkis] does with it.”