Tom Hardy’s Venom WIll Be a Motion-Captured Character

Motion-capture is quickly taking over, as more and more films every year are utilizing the technology — and not just superhero movies or movies about tribes of tall, blue aliens. Andy Serkis, practically the patron saint of motion-capture, discussed the technology during an interview about his new period film Breathe (which, unfortunately, does not feature any CGI creatures), and let slip that Tom Hardy was using it to play the title character in Venom.

When Yahoo! Movies asked Serkis whether he thinks that motion-capture performances deserve awards season recognition, Serkis, while explaining why he thinks they absolutely should, let slip the Venom secret.

The time has come that people understand that performance capture is a technology, not a genre of acting. Acting is acting, and the more actors – like Steve Zahn… and Karin Konoval who plays Maurice in War For The Planet of the Apes – the more A-list actors that come on board, like Mark Rylance playing The BFG, or a lot of actors in the new Marvel films… Tom Hardy is playing a new character using performance capture. It all points up ‘what is the nature of acting?’ and there is no difference between acting wearing a costume and make up, or wearing a motion capture suit. That’s plain and simple, it just needs awarding bodies to understand that.

He doesn’t mention Venom by name, but, since we know that production started on the movie this week and the character is one that would definitely need some form of CGI assistance to be brought to the big screen, it’s not too hard to figure out. And it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise: Venom has this big alien symbiote form, with exaggerated features like a giant toothy mouth and that big ol’ tongue. He was last portrayed using CGI in Spider-Man 3. In this new version, motion-capture should give the character more of a realistic edge.

Venom hits theaters October 5, 2018.

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