Will Venom be the darkest ever Marvel movie?

The trailer for Sony’s first step into its new movie universe hints at a visceral grisliness very different to the Avengers’ smiling saviours.

A penny for the thoughts of Sam Raimi, director of the original Spider-Man movies, should he have happened to watch the new trailer for Sony’s Venom this week. For the first instalment in the studio’s own Marvel universe (not to be confused with Marvel’s own Marvel Cinematic Universe, owned by Disney) looks like just the sort of movie Raimi would have chopped his own hand off to be given the chance of directing.

Raimi was cast aside by Sony after the critical drubbing received by 2007’s Spider-Man 3, even though that movie’s well-documented problems (mainly involving Venom) were allegedly not all of his making. He appears to have been in the directorial sin-bin since 2013’s middling Oz the Great and Powerful, so it is ironic that the studio now seems to be moving its superhero movies in the kind of comedy-horror direction that would have been second nature to the creator of Evil Dead II and Drag Me to Hell.

I like this new Venom trailer. The previous one was the very definition of the disappointing teaser – lots of gurning Tom Hardy doing his arty-weirdo thing and very little of the horrifying symbiote. As Hardy makes clear in the trailer, Venom isn’t only journalist Eddie Brock, it’s also the horrific, glistening mask of alien teeth. Finally we get to see both, and it turned out all Sony had to do to get us excited about this movie was show us the money.

It makes sense why the studio has plucked Ruben Fleischer from Hollywood purgatory, where he had been languishing since 2013’s Gangster Squad, to direct Venom. Fleischer’s Zombieland (2009) is a rare example of the perfect blend of horror and comedy, a worthy successor to Raimi’s late-80s work.

That film had the seamless double act of Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg as a hardboiled killer of the undead and a twitchy, self-deprecating college kid. Fleischer’s new film will get its laughs from the interplay between Brock-Hardy and symbiote-Hardy. (Again this starts to make sense: Hardy has been talking to himself in movies for most of his career.)

What a staggering feat of CGI-work the new Venom is, especially given how many superhero films over the past decade have been littered with dismal digital characters (hello, Justice League’s Steppenwolf).

Originally pitched as a skewed send-up of the Spider-Man costume, Venom here has morphed into something altogether more odious and disgusting. There is even a hint of David Cronenberg’s body horror in the way the symbiote wraps itself around Hardy’s face.

Funnily enough, the CGI work in Spider-Man 3 was one of the film’s best elements. It was that Venom’s origin story was relegated to one of several competing sub-plots which annoyed fans. Nevertheless, there looks to be a definite quality improvement in the antihero’s debut solo outing.

Charlize Theron Is Even Smarter Than We Thought

If you remember anything about The Huntsman: Winter's War, the new Snow White and the Huntsman spinoff, it's probably this: In January 2015, the film (then called just The Huntsman) made headlines after "Page Six" reported that Charlize Theron had fought hard to be paid as much money as Chris Hemsworth in the film. This was shortly after the Sony hacks had revealed that Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams were paid less than their male co-stars in American Hustle, and Theron's raise was widely interpreted as a much-needed pushback against the Hollywood pay gap. As Theron told Elle U.K., "This is a good time for us to bring this to a place of fairness ... If you’re doing the same job, you should be compensated and treated in the same way."

Watch the film, though, and you'll notice something. Hemsworth is the star of the film; with the exception of a brief prologue where his character's a child, he's in the whole thing. Theron's Ravenna, meanwhile, has ... four scenes? Maybe five, depending on how you count them. In a two-hour movie, she's got about ten minutes of screen time — less than Hawkeye gets in the first Avengers.

Did Theron shamelessly use the conversation about the gender pay gap as an excuse to scoop up a sweet-ass raise that was incommensurate with her actual commitment to the role? I hope so! If we cant solve the pay gap overnight — and there's no reason we can't — the least we can do is let women exploit our collective guilt about it for their own ends. In its own minor way, this too is a sign of social progress.

Theron isn't the first actor to be paid a ton of money for a minor role: Marlon Brando famously got $3.7 million upfront (roughly $13.5 million today) plus points to play Jor-El in Superman, and he didn't even learn his lines. You bet your ass he didn't apologize for it. Besides, screentime isn't the only reflection of an actor's contribution to a film. Theron is a bigger star than Hemsworth, who's never proven he can open a non-Marvel movie. Having Theron in the film, even if it's just for a few minutes, means Universal can put her on the poster, use her in the trailers, send her on the late-night talk-show circuit. Surely that's worth a few million? (Although given the movie's box-office tracking, that might be a different calculation than it was a year ago.)

Even if the film's a disaster — and make no mistake, it's pretty terrible — it's hard not to feel in awe of Theron's hustle. She got paid a bunch of money for a few days' work, got to wear an awesome dress, and won't be blamed when Winter's War flops. And what are stars for, if not to show us visions of a good life we didn't know was possible?

Charlize Theron is making a new comedy

Charlize Theron is making a new comedy with the team from Young Adult

Back before she spent all her time Fast & Furiosa-ing around (or Winter Warring with a bunch of men and their hunts), Charlize Theron pulled down strong reviews for her performance as a delusional would-be homewrecker in 2011’sYoung Adult. And while the critical adulation Theron received for her role was probably just more-of-the-same for the often-celebrated star, it came as something of a recent highlight for the film’s writer and director, Juno’s Diablo Cody and Up In The Air’s Jason Reitman, whose careers have been a bit less garlanded with laurels of late.

That might help explain why the trio is getting back together, having just pulled together financing for Tully, a new comedy (at least, in the “quiet despair with some jokes tossed in” sense of the word). The film will center on Theron’s character, a mother of three, who has the services of a night nanny gifted to her by her brother. From there, bonding will presumably ensue, along with a bunch of references to ’90s culture, and the ways the internet is destroying human society, one sad Adam Sandler performance at a time.

Bon Jovi's Christmas song to R2-D2

In a perfect world, wouldn't it be great if there were a Christmas record that featured Jon Bon Jovi wishing Merry Chistmas to R2-D2 of "Star Wars" fame?

Hello, perfect world.

Yes, Virginia,  such a record exists. "Christmas in the Stars: Star Wars Christmas Album" features the track "R2-D2, We Wish You a Merry Christmas," sung by an 18-year old Bon Jovi at his cousin Tony Bongiovi's recording studio. The track sounds like its title would suggest, with a kids chorus, sleigh bells and cheery vibraphone.

Our chimney is big and round, so you can come on down," sings Bon Jovi, credited as John Bongiovi.

The "Star Wars Christmas Album" received the full backing of the George Lucas empire around the time of the "The Empire Strikes Back" release in 1980. The album was produced by Meco Monardo, the creator of the "A New Hope" disco remix, and it featured the actual voice of C-3PO,  Anthony Daniels.

“I knew that it was going to sell,” Bongiovi said to the CBC last year. “So (Jon Bon Jovi) sang on it. If you have a hit, then you can turn around and say, ‘Hey, this album is a hit, let’s turn around and sign him’ That’s how he ended up on that track.”

Alas, the label that released the "Star Wars Christmas Album," RSO Records, went out of business at the time of its release and only 150,000 copies were pressed. Most don't associate Bon Jovi with Star Wars, but on the eve of the debut of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," Twitter mentions of it are up.

Bon Jovi rarely speaks of it. Fobres was able to get a few sentences out of him on "R2-D2, We Wish You a Merry Christmas" in a 2011 article called, "Jon Bon Jovi's Star Wars Secret."