It's been pretty clear with Raimi's interviews over the last six months or so that he doesn't have a lot of confidence in this film. He was always giving comments like, "Venom, yeah, he's interesting. We'll see how that turns out." I think the studio basically forced him to add all this crap. We'll know when the dust settles in a year or so.

As soon as I heard there were three (!!!) villians and two love interests, I knew that the film was in trouble. That sounds like the work of studio execs, not a director. I could be wrong, but Raimi is generally a devoted storyteller, if a little over the top.