Josh Trank Goes In-Depth About His R-Rated VENOM Pitch

Last week wee passed along word that Chronicle and Fantastic Four director Josh Trank once pitched a hard R version of Venom “in the vein of The Mask” with director Rob Siegel (Big Fan).

And today Tranked talked a bit more about the experience.

Trank tells ComicBookMovie: “After Chronicle came out…I met with Amy Pascal and the senior executives at Sony. It was a really cool meeting and Amy Pascal is really sweet and everybody there is really cool. They loved Chronicle and wanted to find a project that made sense, and Amy brought up Venom out of nowhere. I’m a huge fan of Todd McFarlane in general and Venom was just a character I’ve always loved. I immediately thought about The Mask.

RELATED: JOSH TRANK TALKS PUMPKINHEAD REBOOT

He adds: “This could be like a really cool synthesis of everything about The Mask that I loved, but infused into the lore of this iconic Marvel character. We were off to the races, we made a deal for it, and I was really excited. I brought on a very good friend of mine Robert Siegel, who was the writer and director of Big Fan, and he’s somebody who was a mentor of mine when I was much younger. thought this was an opportunity to make something really character-y, uncomfortable, and break ground in terms of having this super nuanced uncomfortable character story with the branding of a massive four-quadrant superhero film. We turned in the treatment, and they didn’t like it. That kind of says everything, but the irony is that Tom ended up doing it later on.”

RELATED: CHRONICLE AND FANTASTIC FOUR DIRECTOR PITCHED HARD-R VENOM MOVIE

So what did he think of Ruben Fleischer’s Venom with Tom Hardy?

He says: “I still haven’t had the opportunity to see it because I’ve been working on Capone as the sole editor, and I’ve been working on my own Tom Hardy movie this whole time and didn’t want to have any crossover with what they were doing. The fact Tom and I are so in sync with each other, it makes sense he would go into that using the perfect Jim Carrey as The Mask template type of character for Eddie Brock and Venom. I’m so happy it did as well as it did as it’s cool to know everyone loves Tom Hardy for that, and he’s one actor out there who’s really gonna go there while at the same time having real bona fide potential as an action star. It’s so rare.”

RELATED: VENOM DEVOURS SPIDER-MAN’S HEAD IN KILLER LET THERE BE CARNAGE POSTER

Would you have liked to see Josh Trank once pitched a hard R version of Venom? Make sure to let us know in the comments below or over on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram

Director Andy Serkis’ Venom: Let There Be Carnage with Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock and Woody Harrelson as Cletus Cassidy will now be unleashed into a theater near you on June 25, 2021. 

The sequel stars Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock / Venom along with Woody Harrelson as Cletus Kasady / Carnage, Michelle Williams as Eddie’s ex-fiancée Anne Weying, Reid Scott as Anne’s boyfriend Dan Lewis, Naomie Harris as Shriek, and Stephen Graham in an undisclosed role.

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