It has finally been confirmed that actress Michelle Williams will be playing Anne Weying in Sony’s upcoming Venom film.
Rumors of her involvement go all the way back to July, when little else was known about the film. She finally confirmed them during the press tour for her next film, the Ridley Scott historical drama All the Money in the World.
In an interview with Screen Rant, she suggested that the involvement of Tom Hardy, who plays the lead in the movie, inspired her to join the project.
“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,” she explained.
In the comics, Venom is a character from the cast of Spider-Man. He consists of a alien creature known as the Venom Symbiote bonded to a human host, who gets superpowers from it but also has their rage and negative emotions amplified. Though this has happened to several people over the years, the most famous is Eddie Brock, whom Hardy will be playing in the film. He began as a villain, but eventually evolved into more of an anti-hero.
Williams’ character, Anne Weying, is Brock’s ex-wife in the comics. A successful lawyer, she helped Spider-Man defeat the mentally unstable Brock on a few occasions, but most famously also played host to to the Venom Symbiote herself, temporarily becoming “She-Venom.”
How much of this is relevant to the upcoming movie is not exactly clear. For example, Spider-Man will not be involved in the story, which will immediately skip to Brock/Venom playing his anti-heroic role against another, eviler Symbiote host, Carnage. There has also been some indication that Brock will be some sort of government agent trying to use the Venom Symbiote for good, making him a composite character with Flash Thompson/Agent Venom from the comics.
Given all this, Weying is likely to be reimagined as well. Perhaps she will be adapted to a more traditional Hollywood formula and made into Brock’s love interest, whether or not she begins as his ex; and if she does become She-Venom, perhaps she, too, will be some sort of government agent or anti-hero, which was not true of her character in the source material. Sony is clearly making big changes, so for now it is hard to say.
