Ruben Fleischer on why SPOILER is being saved for the Venom sequel

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

If the title didn't clue you in, there will be MAJOR SPOILERS for VENOM below. So consider yourself warned. The film, which is now playing in theaters, stars Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock, a journalist desperate to get his career back on track after a recent scandal. While investigating the Life Foundation and its mysterious leader, Dr. Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), Brock is exposed to an alien symbiote which bonds with him and gives him extraordinary powers. Now, let's get to those spoilers!

In a mid-credit sequence, Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) visits San Quentin State Prison in order to interview an inmate. Once there, he's brought to a cell which holds the dangerous and deranged serial killer, Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson), who vows to break out and promises that "there's gonna be carnage" when he does. Should VENOM be fortunate enough to warrant a sequel, this definitely takes the first step in setting one up. While speaking with IGN, VENOM director Ruben Fleischer said that he held off on introducing Cletus/Carnage because he wanted the first film to establish the character of Eddie Brock and his bond with Venom.

We’d like to think that this movie will expand to other movies and Carnage is, I think, the most beloved of the Venom adversaries, with the exception of probably Spider-Man. And so we definitely didn’t want to include Carnage in this first movie because it felt like we wanted to establish Eddie and Venom and so that’s why we worked having Riot as our main adversary. But the intention or the ambition was to show that there are legs for the franchise in that a fan favorite let alone played by Woody Harrelson would be something we could look forward to in the future.

As for how Cletus Kasady will become bonded with the Carnage symbiote, Ruben Fleischer hasn't thought that far ahead. In the comics, Eddie Brock wound up as Cletus Kasady's cellmate, but Fleischer didn't want to end the film with Brock in jail, but he did make sure to leave the two characters in "jail cell proximity" in order to leave the door open. It's too early to say whether VENOM will get a sequel, but if it does, and if Carnage is unleashed, Fleischer is looking forward to witnessing Woody Harrelson explore his darker side once again. "When you think about a guy named Cletus, and off the comic book pages what he might be like, this insane serial killer, if you think about Woody in Natural Born Killers and the menace that he brought to that character, I think it’s really exciting to think about him going to that darker place again," Flesicher said. "Because recently he’s been playing more kind of heroic or comedic parts so to see him going to that kind of darker space, I think, is going to be incredible."

VENOM is now playing in theaters, so be sure to check out reviews from our own JimmyO and Chris Bumbray and let us know what YOU thought of the film as well.