'Venom' puts its wisecracking monster center-screen in latest trailer

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Because of the Disney-distributed Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, and Ant-Man and the Wasp, Marvel fans seemingly haven’t been over-the-top excited about this year’s other high-profile offering: the Sony-produced Venom. But thanks to a new trailer out Tuesday, the mixed reactions might swing more in one direction.

The three-minute promo gives the world its best look yet at star Tom Hardy as a man who becomes bonded with an alien symbiote. Director Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) has certainly embraced the comic book character’s malevolent personality as well as exploited his expansive powers for set-piece imagery, which here involves Eddie Brock/Venom using gooey black symbiotic material to form a bulletproof shield and enormous axes.

The trailer lays out the story, which involves Hardy’s Brock not only trying to come to grips with his newfound symbiotic buddy — who’s the Mr. Hyde to his journalistic Jekyll — but also his attempts to become a villainous “lethal protector” and combat the human-symbiote bad guys created by Riz Ahemd’s Dr. Carlton Drake, who according to one of the final sights is going to become a symbiotic bad guy himself (aka Riot).

As before, initial online reaction is all over the place:

Also starring Michelle Williams, Venom swings into theaters on Oct. 5.

Read more at Yahoo Entertainment:

• Elizabeth Banks’s R-rated joke about new ‘Venom’ trailer ignites a celebrity Twitter conversation

• ‘Venom’ star Riz Ahmed on why a South Asian woman should write ‘Ms. Marvel’

• ‘Venom’ shows its fanged face in first full-length trailer — to mixed reviews

• ‘Venom’ teaser is all tease and no Venom … and fans are ticked