If you are anticipating Marvel’s Venom like me, the first villain in the Spider–Man villain universe, then you must have noticed that the second trailer released recently doesn’t have any scene featuring Sope Aluko. First of all, the trailer narratively builds up on the teasing first footage, intimating us with Tom Hardy as he dually plays Eddie Rock and the titular Venom.

There are a few, mind-blowing set pieces, most of which takes place against a nightly city landscape (Venom is made up of dark alien matter, so appropriate), and a first look at the film’s antagonist Riot, an anti-Venom symbiote bonded to Dr. Carlton Drake and played by Riz Ahmed.

Conspicuously missing from all the action is Black Panther actress Sope Aluko, whose involvement in the project was announced months ago but her role shrouded in mystery. Major news outlets have described her character as “undisclosed,” and when I looked up her name in the Google movie cast page, all I saw was a blank space.

But my guess is that she’s one of the Venom-spawned symbiotes created in the survivalist group Life Foundation, a shadow organisation that uses mad science to evolve mankind in order to endure an apocalyptic event. Obviously, she can’t be the symbiote Scream, because this role has since been announced to be played by Michelle Lee.

Other symbiotes are Agony, Phage and Lasher, and it’s still unconfirmed if they will feature in the upcoming Venom or shelved away for possible installments of the movie.

Directed by Ruben Fleischer and hitting theaters in October, Aluko’s role still hasn’t been accounted for. Whatever role she would play, though, it better be a good sucker punch.

Editor