Tony Todd has tragically passed away at the age of 69, a legendary industry figure whose work spanned from horror icon to most recently voicing a famous character in one of the biggest games of 2023. No cause of death has been revealed .

Todd is best known for his role in the Candyman franchise as the central assassin, but has also appeared in The Crow, The Rock, Final Destination, Platoon and played Kurn, Worf’s brother, in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Todd also has a long career as a voice actor, playing characters in Masters of the Universe, Half Life: Alex, Justice League Dark, but most recently he was the voice of Venom in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, which focused on the symbiote, and Todd did that too. the voice when the entity completely took over Harry Osborne in the game. In 2023, he spoke about voicing the character and how he approached it:

“They had to be recognizable and he had to have a goal and follow through with it. I come from the theater. I have a Masters in Theater so I take every job, whether it’s voiceover, TV, film, as a well-crafted script and we just went with the flow. For me, Venom was fun to do and I wanted to make sure there was a joyful quality to his destruction.

‘A joyful quality in its destruction’, what an expression. There’s another quote from him about voicing Venom that may actually bring a tear to your eye, given the context now:

“He’s only here on earth for a while and then he goes somewhere else, so I wanted to make sure he left that impact of joy, tenacity and deliciousness behind him.”

Todd later said that Insomniac only used about 10% of the dialogue he recorded, leading to speculation that much of it was being saved for a Venom spin-off game. One such project leaked during a recent Insomniac hack, although the studio has since come out and said that Spider-Man 2 would not receive DLC. But a standalone Venom game in the vein of Miles Morales might not count that much, and at least in theory, it’s possible that a Venom game with Todd’s voice work will one day exist. Insomniac obviously wouldn’t use this tragic moment to announce that, but it’s a real question and would speak to some of the actor’s latest work.

Todd was clearly a great man, and after his passing he was mourned by countless actors and media, especially in the horror world. Lots of strength to his family and friends at this time.

Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Blue sky And Instagram.

Pick up my science fiction novels Herokiller series And The Earthborn Trilogy.