Release The Tom Hardy Cut of ‘Venom’

They say you can have too much of a good thing. But personally, I’d like to test that theory, and demand Sony Pictures release the seven hour long Tom Hardy edit of Venom.

Not that Venom is good, mind you. It’s the sort of movie that is so often bad, it circles around to being enjoyable. Good? No. Comprehensible? Definitely not. But what keeps it anchored throughout the 112 minute long runtime is Tom Hardy’s dual performance as “journalist” Eddie Brock, and his alien suit buddy, Venom. The best scenes in the movie are easily the ones where Hardy just wanders around San Francisco, yelling at himself or jumping into lobster tanks to calm his parasite’s craving for live flesh.

Venom at its best is Little Shop of Horrors without the musical numbers or nuance; which makes it more watchable (and rewatchable) than 90% of the movies out there.

Before the movie was even out, though, Hardy set fan speculation aflame during an interview where he dropped that, “there are 30 to 40 minutes’ worth of scenes that aren’t in this movie… Mad puppeteering scenes, dark comedy scenes.” For those who had already seen the movie, this seemed… Great? Because again, those are the best scenes in the film, not the ones where Riz Ahmed and Hardy’s floating heads fight in a pile of goop.

It also seemed like Hardy must have been exaggerating, right? There’s no way 30-40 minutes were missing from the movie. Don’t worry, he later clarified his statements to IGN on a red carpet for the film:

“That’s been misunderstood,” Hardy said. “What I’m trying to say is, the question was [what] scenes I was most excited to shoot… And I was like, there’s a bunch of stuff that hasn’t made the movie. And I’m talking [from] an actor’s point of view. So what I’m saying is I had a lot of time improvising and a lot of freedom to play with Venom. So in honesty there’s probably about 7 hours or more worth of footage of me playing as Venom and enjoying myself…and when I was doing it I took him right out there, and played with it and had a lot of fun because there’s a lot of fun you can have with the project and with this character.”

Obviously, a 152 minute long cut of Venom would be too much to ask for, so it’s good that Hardy clarified there were… Wait, hold up. Did he say seven hours??? Normally when an actor amends their statements, it’s to downplay what they said previously. Instead, Hardy casually dropped that there are hours of additional footage of him just improvising as Venom/Brock.

And I would pay good money to watch that cut of the movie.

Look, I get that a lot of this is probably repetitive takes, unfinished footage, Hardy babbling nonsensically and yelling at himself in back alleys. But releasing a seven hour long cut of Venom in theaters might, honestly, make as much sense as the movie does currently. And it would be so much damn fun to watch. Would you go a little insane by hour two or three? Sure. But that’s the right headspace to be in to watch Venom anyway. Rent out theaters for a day, sell booze, and watch Hardy go amok.

Is there a precedent for a blockbuster, seven hour long movie? No. But there’s also no precedent for a movie like Venom, which manages to pummel you over the head with fun until you have no choice but to submit. Make it happen, Sony.

Where to stream Venom