Venom is a very popular comic book character, since he has all of the web-slinging abilities of Spider-Man but also his suit is black and he likes to murder people (two things that some weird comic book fans really love), so it’s not surprising that the first trailer for the Venom movie with Tom Hardy has been popular. What is surprising, though, is that it has been ridiculously popular. As of today, the Venom trailer has been viewed just over 64 million times, which—according to a ScreenCrush report—makes it more popular than the trailer for every Spider-Man movie. It’s also more popular than the trailers for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Justice League, and The Twilight Saga: New Moon. We just have one question: Why?
Venom is a cool character, we understand that, but this Venom? Look at his face up there. That’s a face that people wanted to see 64 million times? We know that a lot of folks want to bone down with Hardy’s Venom, but surely that doesn’t account for millions and millions of YouTube views. Are some of the clicks just morbid curiosity from people who saw images like the one up above and figured it had to be better in context? Or did viewers just hear that Jenny Slate pronounces symbiote weird and wanted to experience it for themselves?
Also, just to be honest, we’ve watched the trailer a few times tonight and we kind of get it. Venom looks like an artifact from the pre-Avengers days of superhero movies, when filmmakers had to pretend that they weren’t making a comic book adaptation, and there’s something oddly endearing about that. Plus, it’s cool that he says “We are Venom,” which is the way he’d talk in those cool ‘90s comics. Man, remember the ‘90s? They were so cool. Alright, we’re back on board with Venom. Here’s the trailer again so we can watch it a few more times: