Venom Easter Eggs:
Venom was a movie which was a cliché dumb fun. It set up so many things to explain its plot but did not necessarily conclude everything due to its limited run time. The film also changed the origin story for how Venom bonded with Eddie Brock, but you cannot take away the fact that it did keep the right motivation for the character. Another great fact about this film was the slew of Easter Eggs and references that general audiences did end up missing. Here’s a list:
1. There’s a Reason Why Venom Wants Chocolates
Towards the end of the film, Eddie sets certain ground rules for Venom to follow. He tells Venom that their deal would only work if Venom agrees to co-operate with him. If the two are to stay together, then Venom could never hurt good people, and only very rarely, is allowed to eat the bad ones.
Right there we see that Venom actually asks for “Tater Tots… And chocolate instead of the usual brain meal that he prefers. The reason behind him demanding chocolate was that chocolates contain phenethylamine, which is a chemical that is required by the Symbiotes. The same chemical also stimulates the brain in humans. So that’s why Venom straight up bites the heads.
2. Riot copies Carnage
Towards the final act of the movie, we see a gigantic CGI battle take place between Venom and Riot. A very iconic moment that was apparent in the trailers and in the film was the time when Riot literally tries to split Eddie and the Symbiote by pulling the two apart.
3. She-Venom
Venom was a good origin story because of the fact that it focused on flushing out the character arc of Eddie Brock well and kept other support characters on the sidelines. One of those characters turned out to be Brock’s love interest Anne Weying. Apart from Brock and Carlton Drake, her character arc was also essential for the film, and the stunning part about her was that we actually got to see a very sexy-she Venom being teased in the film!
She bonded with Venom for a short while in order to save Hardy, and then later in the movie, she talked about how she thought that the Symbiote clearly has very attractive powers. That was clearly a tease for her becoming she Venom in future movies.
4. The Venom Kiss
One surprising moment of the film turned out to be the kiss between Eddie and She-Venom who was later revealed to be Anne. When Eddie asked Annie about the kiss in the final scenes of the film, she revealed that it was actually the Symbiote’s idea. So was she hiding her feelings there, or did the Symbiote sense her feelings for Eddie rejuvenating and decided to make her kiss her former lover?
Well, it could be both, but maybe more as what if Venom himself wanted to kiss Eddie? Venom and Eddie have had a kid together in the comics, so a mere kiss should not give you a heart attack. Still, this kiss wasn’t as iconic as Thanos kissing a Venom-ized Lady Death.
5. Venom Dog
The comics showed us a variety of Symbiotized dogs because of the instability of these monsters Symbiotes and the incapability of the dogs to be able to sustain them for a longer period of time. Some popular versions are the War Dog Lasher, or the furry dog Venom latches on to in order to escape the arctic colds. We did not get to see those extreme Symbiote dogs but we did get to see Venom latch on to the little Gemini which was a great homage to the comics.
6. The Wilhelm Scream
This is probably the oldest and the most common Easter Egg you could get to see in Venom, as throughout the film we got to see Venom get attacked, and he gives us what we call the “Wilhelm Scream” which has been used in at least 389 movies till now, and yet it makes its way to Venom as well.
7. Eddie’s Old Editor Gets a Reference
As things go south for Eddie after he gets threatened by Carlton Drake who also becomes the cause of Eddie losing his job, we see a short montage of Eddie looking for work and there he is shown texting a person for a job. That person who gets a teeny bit of reference is actually listed as Barney Bushkin who is the editor of the Daily Globe and an arch nemesis of the infamous J. Jonah Jameson. Eddie just happens to have worked for him in the comics.
8. Riot, the leader of Symbiotes
The story was supposed to be based on the “Lethal Protector” which would have shown us 5 Symbiotes against Venom, but to make it more fitting on screen, the creatives of the film only took bits of that. 5 Symbiotes did not make it to Earth and 4 Symbiotes followed Riot, the leader of their team to Earth in order to take over the planet with a vast variety of dinner. We were misled into believing that Venom would take on 5 Symbiotes, but we did get to see Riot emerge as the “Team Leader” of the Symbiotes.
9. Venom, an outcast
The real motivation for Venom to become an anti-hero and taking a liking to planet Earth was portrayed as Venom being a loser amongst his peers on his planet, and on Earth, he had a sense of belongingness. This seemed a little too cliché and vague, but it is actually true to the comics.
Venom has a sense of goodness in him that separates him from other Symbiotes, and this is why the other Symbiotes hated him in the film as well. So it is good to see that the film is pretty comic-inspired even if it had to change quite a lot in the story on the part of its origin.
10. Stan the Man makes yet another Cameo!
No Marvel movie is really complete without a Stan Lee cameo. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 established him as an informant to the Watchers and that is what seems to justify him being everywhere even in different Universes, so he had to make it in this one! The cameo in the film comes in the very end where Stan Lee appears as a Dog Walker giving Brock the advice of his life. It is hard to miss Stan Lee these days, but still worth a mention!
11. The Post Credits scene set in an Alternate Universe!
For those of you who sat till the very end until the credits rolled completely, thinking about another scene setting up the sequel or even a threequel got played completely. Sony is making their big move by bringing an animated Miles Morales into an already established Spider-verse with multiple Spider-people being out there. For those of you who weren’t patient enough to sit till the very end, you missed a marketing tactic that Sony used for their next Spider-Man film. We saw a funny sequence of Miles Morales and Peter Parker hanging out (literally) together. It is an alternate Universe, but will there be a connection to the Venom-verse?
12. The next film is gonna be complete “Carnage!”
Unlike the post credits sequence, the mid-credits does help set up a sequel as it shows us Eddie Brock score a huge interview which turned out to be with the mass murderer Cletus Kasady, aka Carnage. Woody Harrelson has been bagged for the role but the dumber audiences who are unfamiliar with Carnage from the comics got a great help as the creatives literally put it into the faces of the audiences with the cheap red wig and the fact that Kasady straight up mentioned the carnage he would bring in the future!
13. Curing Cancer
These days almost every other movie is trying to cure cancer with the out of the world experiments they try to portray. This film goes down the same cliché line of experiments as there is a clear mention that the Life Foundation is trying to find a cure for cancer with the Symbiote experiments.
But there is a reason for that as again, the film tries to keep it close to the comics. It is a straight up reference to the Ultimate Spider-Man version of Venom where the Venom suit was the creation of both Eddie Brock and Peter Parker’s father built to detect and cure, yes you guessed it right, CANCER.
14. “So many snacks, so little time”
The film was funny in a very cheezy way. You may not want to laugh on cheezy jokes like what the film makes but it does make sure that you will laugh at those. Venom’s dialogues were pretty wonky, but they worked. There were many instances that were picked straight from the comics and one of those was the dialogue where Venom catches hold of Drake’s henchman and says, “Eyes, lungs, pancreas. So many snacks… so little time.” Believe it or not, this was taken straight from the source material.
15. The Spider-Symbol
Since the origin of Venom was changed in the film, the Symbiote did not get to have Peter Parker as a host before he latched on to Eddie Brock. So, the need to put the Spider-Symbol on Venom was pointless. But the film gives a very minute reference to the Symbol as after it gets detached from Eddie’s, courtesy of Riot, Eddie gets stabbed with a spear right through his chest and is left to die.
As life was about to leave his body, you know who returns and heals Eddie. As Venom covers and heals Eddie, we see him pull the Spear out, and the gap is filled by a while Venom material. It is not the Spider-Symbol, but it was the closest we could get to it in Sony’s Universe of Marvel Characters.
