Carnage & Morbius

[School of Movies 2023]

This is a pair of Patreon After School Club episodes, covering the second and third instalments of the Venomverse. 

Back in 2018, after I recorded my initial After School Club on the original Venom movie (which was subsequently released like this on the main feed) I outlined its various strengths and weaknesses and what a messy, daft underachievement it was. But then Venom wound up insanely popular, making more than many MCU entries. $856m versus The Eternals sitting un-prettily at $402m. That doesn't necessarily mean Venom is a better film, just that general audiences warmed to it HARD.

So there was a big question mark over what might happen if they made the sequel into the film they WANTED to make, rather than what felt like a weirdly compromised first instalment which was clearly reshaped from its original R-rated incarnation. What do you suppose happened with Part 2?

And then, the film that nobody wanted with the star that nobody asked for. Quickly bottoming the charts as one of the worst Marvel-adjacent movies ever made, this is a fine example of why the term "Superhero" really shouldn't be applied collectively. They are set in a universe/multiverse of superpowered beings but this is most definitely a science experiment that goes wrong and changes a genius doctor who *used* to help people into a toothy CGI beastie who jumps off rooftops, flies about the city and feels sorry for himself while the investigating police ineptly try to catch him before ultimately giving up. 

This is the first time I've coined the term "The Venom-Verse", because that's what this is. Nothing of Spider-Man, everything of vestigial comic book villains who swear to be antiheroes at some unspecified point in the future if Sony can get their act together. So welcome to Bat-Scientist Begins (and if we're all very lucky, ends).