Whether or not it still arrives as planned on September 24th remains up for debate after the most recent trailer dropped a concrete release date in favor of the altogether more vague ‘in theaters this fall’, but fans are still hyped over Venom: Let There Be Carnage thanks to the footage on display in the promo.
Ruben Fleischer’s opener may have made in excess of $850 million at the box office, but it was like a superhero movie plucked straight out of the 90s in terms of structure, story, dialogue and one-note characters, with the obvious and very notable exception of Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock. The actor’s performance was the standout aspect of Venom by a mile, and it’s encouraging to know that he’s had a vastly increased amount of input on the sequel.
Not only is the actor listed as one of the producers, but he’s taking a story credit as well, so his fingerprints are guaranteed to be all over the finished product. While he stopped short of saying it was definitely happening in a new interview, the leading man still heavily teased that both he and Sony are already thinking about a third installment.
“I’m thinking about the third movie as well, because I think you need to write that at the same time. A third won’t be green lit until the second is successful, but the studio were really, really pleased with number two.”
Nobody’s going to deny that Venom will remain the crown jewel of the Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters for the foreseeable future, even if it’s still the one and only movie the franchise has actually released to date. Morbius and Kraven the Hunter are far from a sure thing, but even if the studio’s plans for a shared superhero mythology implode once again, the symbiotic antihero is surely destined to stick around as the star of his own solo series whatever happens.