Avi Arad | the m0vie blog

Venom: Circle of Four (Review)

Posted on August 24, 2012 by Darren

If you had told me that I would enjoy a Venom collection quite this much, I would have laughed. I picked up the oversized hardcover collection of Circle of Four after enjoying Rick Remender’s Venom issues tying into the Spider-Island crossover. Which, I guess, is one of the benefits of such spin-offs and crossovers, I suppose. Anyway, intrigued by Remender’s take on the character, I was curious enough to take a look at this collection, featuring a crossover between Venom, Red Hulk, X-23 and the new Ghost Rider. Of course, two of those books had been cancelled by the time the crossover rolled around, so the whole “mini-event” was rolled up into Remender’s Venom. While Circle of Four isn’t necessarily a groundbreaking comic book storyline, or even a truly exceptional event, it does demonstrate that even the most conventional premise can work well in the right hands.

Back in black, baby!

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Avi Arad, Crime Master, Eddie Brock, flash, Flash Thompson, Goblin, hulk, iraq war, Lantern, Remender, Rick Remender, spider man, spider-man 3, venom | 2 Comments »

No Venom Intended: Thoughts on the Inevitable Amazing Spider-Man Spin-Off…

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Darren

Apparently Sony is pressing full speed ahead with this Spider-Man license. I suspect they looked at the massive success that Marvel, Paramount and ultimately Disney have had with their series of Avengers films. Releasing a series of relatively independent superhero films that all tied together proved to be quite the financial success, becoming one of the biggest earners of all time. It’s easy enough to understand why other studios might want to follow the business model. The problem? Sony only really has the license to Spidey and his supporting cast. How do you build a multi-character franchise when you only own the rights to one admittedly iconic? You spin-off his supporting characters, of course. In this case, it’s the villain Venom, who is reportedly getting a film from director Josh Trank, who made quite the impression with his début directing Chronicle, and possibly tying into the sequel to The Amazing Spider-Man.

He’s coming right at you!

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Avenger, avengers, Avi Arad, brian michael bendis, Crime Master, disney, Eddie Brock, Flash Thompson, green goblin, Iron Monger, joker, marvel, marvel comics, Rick Remender, sam raimi, sony, spider man, spider-man 3, The Walt Disney Company, venom | 5 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Spider-Man III

Posted on April 2, 2011 by Darren

This is a post as part of “Raimi-fest”, the event being organised by the always wonderful Bryce over at Things That Don’t Suck.

Spider-Man III has a lot of problems. I’ll get to a couple of them in a moment. However, the single biggest issue with the movie seems to be that nobody seems especially interested in making it. It’s a feeling that it’s hard to back up with substantive evidence, but there’s just this general sensation that the film wasn’t the product of the same love and enthusiasm that made the first two films so refreshing. It almost seems like the movie was made out of a sense of obligation, rather than because anyone wanted to be there. It seems that they didn’t really care.