By Creative Media Times

Tom Hardy, Riz Ahmed, and director Ruben Fleischer were at SDCC on Friday where lucky fans had a chance to see the latest footage from Venom with a big reveal of a villain at the end: Riot, another symbiote who is controlling inventor Carlton Drake, played by Ahmed.

In his Comic-con debut, Hardy admits to being nervous being on the SDCC stage, though very excited about the film. “Venom by far, for me, I don’t want to upset anyone, is the coolest Marvel superhero there is. I just like the way he looks,” Hardy says about the character that appealed to him, adding: “my son is a massive Venom fan, and he was a very strong influence on why I should play Venom specifically.”

Fleischer describes that Venom is a “much grittier, grounded, complicated character and more violent,” distinguishing the film from other Marvel characters. “Unlike other superhero movies, there’s no heroes in this movie. Its full of copmlicated and complex characters.”

Jessica Chobot moderates Venom panel @ SDCC with director Ruben Fleischer, Riz Ahmed, and Tom Hardy

The trailer prominently featured Drake and his symbiotes experiments. It also showed Venom’s head stretching out of Eddie’s body so the two can have a conversation as well as Venom’s ability to form axes out of his hands. Then towards the end, the footage reveals Drake as Riot and then showed him with Venom in an epic fight.

In the comics, Venom’s character is a sentient alien symbiote which needs a human host to survive, eventually giving the host enhanced powers. Eddie Brock is the journalist who comes in contact and bonded with the alien and become Venom, who is both vengeful and a hero to those he deems innocent.

Directed by Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland, Gangster Squad), “Venom” is a spin-off from the Spider-Man movie franchise, and is the first in Sony’s Marvel Universe, though in a recent interview, film producer and president of Marvle Studios Kevin Feige stated that the film will not be part of Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“Venom” is set for release on October 5.