I.E, if we see Venom develop a better sense of morality of its own by the end, then I think that would suffice.

The real issue I have here is, it's Sony.

Sony sucks and can't get out of their own way with these films.

Venom was saved by Hardy and the fun of his Venom interactions, but that movie was still a hair above dog shit even with that bit of magic.

They're just not good at this genre, or much of anything at all outside of Into The Multiverse, and the FANTASTIC Mitchells vs The Machines. Equalizer has been a solid franchise. But overall, Sony sucks at making good movies. By and large, their best work requires you to make serious concessions in light of a saving grace here and there.

Because there are ways to make this a compelling film- particularly given the presence of a certain detective that should give us another badass symbiote- but Sony absolutely WILL fuck this up.

This will be paint by numbers, and not in the winning formula way, but in that mediocre, disregard shit that makes people really connect in ways that matter just because we already got this one thing that they'll all like anyways, sort of way.