After being reportedly in talks to join Tom Hardy in Sony’s Venom, actress Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn, Brokeback Mountain) has officially confirmed that she’ll be taking on the role of Anne Weying in this unusual corner of the Marvel universe. Because the rights are owned by Sony rather than Marvel Studios, the Venom film will presumably take place outside the MCU, without any overt connection to Tom Holland’s Spider-Man in Spider-Man: Homecoming.
In the comics, Anne Weying is the on-again, off-again ex-wife of Eddie Brock, who becomes the host for the powerful Venom symbiote that we saw (woefully) portrayed by Topher Grace in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3. This Venom film, on the other hand, seems to be taking itself much more seriously, sporting an R-rating and a cast that includes Riz Ahmed, Jenny Slate and Woody Harrelson in addition to Hardy and Williams. The latter confirmed her involvement in an interview with Screen Rant, saying she wasn’t at liberty to talk much about her character, but that she was excited to work with Hardy in particular.
We’re having fun. Um, we’re having fun. It’s, um, well for me it’s Tom (Hardy). I just thought, well, that guy knows what he’s doing. I’m just going to go steal some of his moves, figure out what he knows. I just wanted to, you know, you’re only as good as the people you play with and I really wanted to challenge myself with him as a partner.
Of course, the real potential reason that people will be excited about the presence of the Anne Weying character is that in some incarnations of the story, she becomes a user of the Venom symbiote as well. Dubbed “She-Venom” or occasionally “The Bride of Venom,” it would be fascinating to see Williams take on one of Marvel’s more unusual female villains/antiheroes.
We’ll continue reporting more on Venom as more news breaks. It will be interesting to see if Sony can turn the character, certainly an important part of the Spider-Man universe, into a franchise player in his own right. The film is directed by Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland, Gangster Squad), and is currently scheduled for an Oct. 5, 2018 release.