Spoilers to follow.
There are a lot of questions fans have after seeing Venom. Apart from”what the hell did I just watch?”, that is. One of the most pressing is the mystery of why Carnage wasn’t chosen to be the main antagonist of the movie. Woody Harrelson does appear as the human host of the red symbiote, Cletus Kasady, in a post-credits scene, which obviously teases his return in a potential sequel, but why was Venom’s nemesis not used to his full extent here?
CBR put this question to director Ruben Fleischer recently and he explained that it was precisely because of the character’s popularity and prominence in Venom lore that he was saved for a follow-up. Fleischer suggested that he feared Carnage would steal the spotlight away from the titular anti-hero symbiote.
“I think, you know, there’s a certain symbiote spawn that I think fans are most excited to see. So that one was off the table. Hopefully at some point in the future they will. Um, so we wanted to save kind of the most anticipated one for the future. And not just that, but because we really wanted this movie to be about Venom.”
With Carnage off the table, that left Fleischer and his team with the challenge of choosing another symbiote to step up and be the central threat. The filmmaker went on to reveal that it was pretty much just the cool aesthetics of Riot that meant he was picked as the main villain who possesses Riz Ahmed’s crooked Carlton Drake.
“And so, it was just honestly kind of like, who’s the coolest looking spawn who isn’t that one? The most badass, you know? That’s where Riot came from. He’s the biggest of the Life Foundation symbiotes, he’s got that gun metal grey. I don’t want to say it was purely an aesthetic decision, but the aesthetics definitely played a big part.”
Honestly, we’re not sure Fleischer and his writers made the right call here. Riot gets a fair amount of screentime in Venom and still doesn’t take away the focus from Eddie Brock and his other half, so Carnage filling that spot would’ve likely had the same effect. What’s more, having already had Venom facing an evil symbiote before, the impact of Carnage in the sequel will surely be lessened, regardless of what Harrelson brings to the character. Which, according to the post-credits scene, is a shockingly bad wig.
Tell us, do you think Carnage should have played a bigger role in Venom? And are you excited to see him in the sequel? Join the conversation in the comments section below.