 Venom is one of the most divisive and polarizing movies of the past decade. There are still many surprising and incredible facts about the movie that might have escaped your attention. So here are 20 interesting facts about Venom. Venom was originally supposed to be female. Venom's signature well-built physique and his coarse male voice were almost written out of the original draft of the 2018 movie's script. Venom was supposed to be played by a female protagonist. Eddie Brock wasn't even among the supporting cast of the movie. The original story was about a pregnant woman who loses her husband and then has a miscarriage. The rage and the agony the woman faces attracts the alien symbiote towards her and she becomes Venom. While the original story was obviously changed, some part of that draft was inculcated into the script. Michelle Williams' character gaining the powers of the Venom symbiote and saving Brock was not a fluke. It was actually how the original script played out. Hardy agreed because his son was a fan. Tom Hardy is not as much of a comic book nerd as the studio would have you believe. In fact, before Venom, he was kind of vocal against the superhero genre, but he still agreed to play Venom. There is one particular reason why he did that. Tom Hardy's son, Louis Hardy, is a huge fan of Venom. When he heard the news that the director of the movie had approached his father for playing the anti-hero on screen, he was ecstatic and convinced Tom to take up the role. Hardy was not at all familiar with Venom and his character backstory. His son had to teach him most of those things before the shooting began. Tom Hardy recorded his lines for the Venom symbiote during pre-production and they were played back to the actor through an earpiece onset during scenes where Brock and the symbiote talked to each other. At around one hour and 30 minutes, the Venom symbiote recommends chocolate. According to the 1995 miniseries Venom, The Hunger, symbiotes need a chemical called phenethylamine, which is available in brains and chocolate. Eddie Brock protecting the homeless Venom may be a headbiting alien freak, but he cares deeply for the underprivileged and the homeless. In the comic books, the primary reason Venom was considered an anti-hero was because he used violent means to protect the ones that live on the streets. Many a times he attacked and killed people for hurting the homeless. In the movie, Eddie Brock shows similar traits. He's the first to notice there are a lot less homeless people on the streets. That's because Drake's corporation has been experimenting on them. Brock is the first to raise questions and he's ostracized by his own fraternity for doing so. When he becomes Venom, he continues the same tradition. At around 44 minutes, the restaurant scene was shot once with the live lobsters and once with the fake lobsters. The lobster that Tom Hardy bites into was actually candy-coated marshmallow filling with chocolate syrup. Tom Hardy did a ton of improvising off various weird bits he noticed in various filming locations, including the infamous lobster tank scene where Eddie climbs in and takes a seat in the lobster tank as he's burning up from a fever. In the comics, the Venom symbiote was initially worn by Peter Parker as a Spider-Man suit after he finds it on another planet, before eventually separating and bonding with Eddie Brock. However, the movie makes the symbiote's independent discoveries of the Life Foundation, removing any connection to Spider-Man whatsoever. Indeed, the giant white spider insignia that typically appears on Venom's chest is absent. The Venom movie's protagonist, Eddie Brock, is more or less a very eccentric character. Tom Hardy, who likes to get into the inner sanctums of the characters he plays, needed to replicate that eccentricity. In order to do so, he took multiple inspirations from some of the greatest celebrities of the world. Hardy used three people as the palette of his inspiration, Woody Allen, Connor McGregor, and Redmond. The rapper Redmond's mellow and quirky attitude, Connor McGregor's aggression and Woody Allen's comic timing was merged together to create the basis of this character. The planet of the symbiotes almost appeared in the movie. The symbiote homeworld is a very elusive and mysterious location in the Marvel comic book universe. It lies far beyond the reach of anyone and is actually a prison to keep the symbiote god named Null incarcerated. The planet was almost featured in the Venom movie. According to director Ruben Fleischer, the planet was almost a part of the theatrical cut of the movie. The scene was later taken to the director's cut. It was then completely removed since it didn't add any substance to the movie itself, and rather complicated Venom's backstory. Tom Hardy describes Venom as a tragic clown. There's something funny about the circumstances of having a tragic gift. It's a superpower you don't really want, but at the same time, you love it. It makes you feel special. He's both a reluctant hero and an anti-hero. At around nine minutes, Ann reminds Eddie of his firing from the Daily Globe and his being forced to leave New York. In the Spider-Man comics, Eddie was a reporter for the Daily Globe, a rival newspaper of the Daily Bugle. In the comic, a serial killer known as the Sin-Eater was going around and murdering people. Eddie interviewed a man who claimed to be the Sin-Eater, but eventually Spider-Man caught the real Sin-Eater, and it was discovered that the man Eddie interviewed was a compulsive confessor. Eddie was subsequently fired from his job because of this, and shortly after becoming Venom, moved to San Francisco. Ann Wang works for a law firm called Michelini and McFarland. These are the names of Venom's creators, David Michelini and Todd McFarland. The name of Brock's apartment building, Shuler, after Randy Shuler, a Marvel Comics fan who in 1982 suggested the idea of giving Spider-Man a black costume. The costume would debut in 1984 and would later evolve into the concept of a sentient alien being, and later into a symbiote. This film was well known to have an extremely difficult production history. The film was originally envisioned as a direct spin-off from Spider-Man 3, though Tofer Grace was not slated to return to the role. Shortly after the films were rebooted, the film was announced once again, though this time within the continuity of the web series. Chris Silke expressed interest in playing the character's Flash Thompson iteration, which was currently running in the comics at that time. Once the amazing Spider-Man 2 was released, Sony announced that Venom, Carnage, would be a part of their Spider-Man cinematic universe. Soon afterward, Sony and Marvel decided to collaborate with the Spider-Man films, opting to reboot again, and placing a Venom spin-off on hold. Prior to the release of the second trailer, it was rumored that the movie would feature the Venom character only during the film's final act. Fans were relieved when the second trailer showed plenty of scenes with the character. The final film also heavily featured Venom in action sequences, though Tom Hardy has revealed that 30-40 minutes of the film, including his favorite sequences, were removed. The Venom symbiote was bonded to Eddie in the comics. However, its connection to his body was essentially in the form of a glorified second layer of skin that would often take the appearance of civilian clothes. This film sees Eddie bonded to the symbiote similarly, but it's also become a part of his body, similar to how his ultimate version was bonded to the black suit. The last film featuring a Stanley cameo to be released during his lifetime before his death on November 12, 2018. He filmed two more cameos that were released after his death, Captain Marvel and Avengers Endgame. Riot was merely the brute to the life foundation symbiote squad and not particularly powerful. All he could do is shape shift his limbs into blunt weapons like hammers and maces. He's upgraded to big bat in this movie, not only being able to shape shift into sharp objects and being more deadly, but also being Venom's superior in power. In June 2017, Marvel producer Kevin Feige confirmed the movie would not be set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, Amy Pascal contradicted this by saying it would. It was later announced that same month that Venom is its own universe. Eventually, the sequel would see Venom get transported to the MCU because of the events of Spider-Man No Way Home. In the comics, the Venom symbiote was initially attached to Spider-Man during the Secret Wars event in 1984. When he realized his costume was alive and was controlling his body, he disposed of it. It would later come in contact with Eddie Brock and the two would be bonded together to form Venom. This film omits the Spider-Man part of Venom's origin. Instead, the film uses the life foundation experimenting with symbiotes. Venom also has no design elements from Spider-Man, instead using a unique symbol. Drake tells a little girl at a field trip that it's not wrong to ask questions and warns that there will be those who try to silence the questioners. Barely as seen later, he gets uncomfortable when Eddie asks questions concerning his dirty laundry and has him kicked off the premises. Thriceover does Drake establish himself as hypocritical in a single scene. He tries to comfort a homeless test subject with the biblical story of Isaac, talks of sacrifice, and promises the homeless man he won't abandon us. At around 1 hour and 26 minutes, right before Venom destroys Drake's rocket, he tells Riot to have a nice life, which is the same thing Drake told Eddie when he interviewed him in the beginning of the movie. After Eddie is fired, Jack tells him the exact same thing. At around 52 minutes, after beating up the men Carlton Drake sends to Eddie's home, Venom suggests that he and Eddie bite off all their heads and pile them into a corner. Understandably, Eddie is horrified by that suggestion. Later on, at around 1 hour and 18 minutes, Ann ends up doing exactly that to roll in Thrice after the Venom symbiote temporarily uses her as a host to save Eddie. After transferring the symbiote to Eddie via kissing, she expresses a similar reaction to Eddie after realizing what she did to Thrice. At around 10 minutes, when Eddie is going through Ann's email, there is an email from someone named Bode. Riz Ahmed played a character named Bode in Rogue One, a Star Wars story.