The world has enough superheroes, argues violent new 'Venom' trailer

WASHINGTON (Circa) — The latest trailer for October’s “Venom” film leans into the character’s anti-heroic, limb-eating roots, adopting a much more brutal tone than most recent Marvel films.

“We will eat both your arms and then both of your legs and then we will eat your face right off your head,” Tom Hardy’s Venom says to a horrified convenience store thief in one scene. “You will be this armless, legless, faceless thing, won’t you?”

Hardy plays Eddie Brock, a journalist who becomes bonded with a violent symbiotic creature while investigating a mysterious foundation run by Carlton Drake, played by Riz Ahmed. What follows is not exactly superheroic, but also, as Eddie puts it, “not completely awful.”

Venom was introduced as a Spider-Man villain 20 years ago when disgraced journalist Brock encountered the jilted alien symbiote that had served as Peter Parker’s black costume. After several years of terrorizing Spider-Man and his supporting cast, Venom moved to San Francisco to lethally protect the innocent there. The character was previously played by Topher Grace in 2007's “Spider-Man 3.”

Given that Tom Holland’s cinematic Spider-Man hasn’t stumbled across an alien costume at this point, the film will likely stray quite a bit from the comic book origin. The new trailer reveals Venom will be fighting at least one other symbiote, crashing quite a few cars, and spending a significant portion of time arguing with himself.

Directed by Ruben Fleischer and also starring Michelle Williams, Scott Haze, and Reid Scott, “Venom” hits theaters on October 5.