Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021)
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- Andy Serkis originally wanted a completely different ending for the film, but test audiences preferred the one we see today.
- Before Tom Hardy was cast, several major A-list stars turned down the lead role because they felt the script was too risky.
- The original script for Venom: Let There Be Carnage was written over a decade before production finally began in 2021.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage is a 2021 American superhero film directed by Andy Serkis, the sequel to the 2018 film Venom. Tom Hardy returns as Eddie Brock, who has settled into an uneasy domestic routine with his alien symbiote Venom β the two bicker constantly about Eddie's diet, living arrangements, and Venom's desire to eat people. Their contentious cohabitation is disrupted when serial killer Cletus Kasady, played by Woody Harrelson, becomes bonded with a red symbiote offspring named Carnage during a prison visit, gaining immense power and escaping to reunite with his childhood love, the mutant Shriek.
Andy Serkis, who brought decades of motion-capture expertise from playing Gollum and Caesar, brought a playful, character-driven sensibility to the sequel that leaned fully into the Eddie-Venom relationship as an odd-couple romantic comedy. The film's 97-minute runtime made it one of the shortest modern superhero films, a deliberate choice that kept the pace brisk. Woody Harrelson's Carnage, while brief in screen time, provided visually spectacular action sequences with the red symbiote's more chaotic, blade-sprouting abilities.
The post-credits scene, in which Venom and Eddie are transported into the MCU and briefly glimpse Spider-Man on television, generated enormous fan excitement about a potential crossover. Venom: Let There Be Carnage earned $502 million worldwide on a $110 million budget during an uncertain pandemic theatrical market.
