“There’s gonna be carnage.” That’s the last line of 2018’s Venom, as said by Woody Harrelson’s Cletus Kasady, introduced in the post-credits scene of the movie. Spider-Man fans knew what this meant, too: Venom’s nemesis, Carnage, will be arriving in the sequel. Sure enough, this has been the subject of a lot of reports and rumors ever since but now, at last, we’ve had it officially confirmed by someone working on Venom 2 that Cletus will definitely be back.
Though Kelly Marcel, who contributed to the first film, is penning the script, Venom 2 will have some major changes behind the scenes, with director Ruben Fleischer being replaced by Andy Serkis. Meanwhile, cinematographer Robert Richardson is one of the new talents joining the franchise for the sequel and while speaking with Collider, he explained why he decided to hop on board the Sony/Marvel universe. And one of the reasons was Woody Harrelson’s villain.
“I was looking forward to entering into that arena with Batman years ago with Ben [Affleck]. I thought, ‘Well this is something I haven’t done that I would love to try to do.’ And then Andy Serkis, who I worked with on Breathe, gave me a call a month ago and said that he was up for this and would I be willing. I’d seen the film. I watched it again, then they sent me a script and I felt like, yeah, I would say yes anyway to Andy just because I would say yes to Andy, but I also think it’s a great… I think it’s unexplored yet, and it’s going to explode, and this film, I think, will help it explode, because you have a remarkable central character with Venom, but now you’ve got Woody Harrelson, who’s going to obviously make his own little entrance here, and we’ll see what else comes in with the Sony Marvel collaboration. I look forward to it. It’s a massive change for me, but I’m excited. I think Hardy is one of our best. He never misses. I so look forward to sitting with him and watching him perform.”
Venom vs. Carnage should be an exciting enough hook for the sequel, but recent developments may spell the mother of all crossovers happening in Venom 2 as well. With Spider-Man no longer in the MCU and back with Sony, there’s nothing stopping the studio from dropping Tom Holland’s Peter Parker into the pic. Richardson’s comment about seeing what else comes from the Sony/Marvel collaboration may even be hinting at that very possibility.
It’s also been theorized that Venom 2 could be R-rated, as it’s thought a PG-13 rating was imposed on the original to up the chances of an MCU crossover. Serkis has also voiced his goal to take the franchise in a different direction. Even though it made a lot of money, the first film didn’t please everyone, but maybe with Serkis at the helm, Carnage on board and maybe, potentially, perhaps a Spidey cameo, the sequel could be a smash hit across the board.