'Venom': Riz Ahmed's Carlton Drake Makes a Huge Mistake in New TV Spot

Carlton Drake thinks the Venom is his, but the Venom can do whatever it wants. Deal?

In an international TV spot for Sony and Marvel’s superhero horror-thriller Venom, Riz Ahmed plays antagonist Carlton Drake, who commands his minions to bring back “my creature.” You can already tell things will end badly for Drake, because no one in their right mind would call the Venom “theirs.”

There’s little that’s new to the international spot we haven’t already seen in the other trailers. Still, it’s a good excuse to kick back and rewatch Tom Hardy succumb to the symbiote and wreak havoc all across San Francisco.

As the leader of the Life Foundation, Carlton Drake has somewhat similar motives to his original comic book counterpart, seen in the 1993 miniseries Venom: Lethal Protector (a series that Venom director Ruben Fleischer confirmed as a major inspiration for the film). In the comic, Drake leads the Life Foundation as a kind of “Noah’s Ark” for rich people, and intends to weaponize the Symbiotes as the new utopia’s guardians.

Because the film is produced independently from Marvel Studios, it is very, very unlikely that any other Marvel character will cameo in the movie, including Spider-Man. That’s probably a good thing, since it would be a very boring movie for Venom to fight a bag of dust. (I’m sorry.)

Venom hits theaters on October 5.