If all goes as planned, Sony Pictures will finally release Venom: Let There Be Carnage in theaters next month. The sequel will once again feature Hollywood’s most unlikely odd couple, Eddie Brock and Venom. In a set of production notes released by the studio, director Andy Serkis went so far as to call the Venom sequel a love story between the two characters.
The film is a love story – but not the love story you might think. It’s very much about the extraordinary relationship between symbiote and host. Any love affair has its pitfalls, its high points and low points; Venom and Eddie’s relationship absolutely causes problems and stress, and they have a near-hatred for each other. But they have to be with each other – they can’t live without each other. That’s companionship – love – the things that relationships are really about.
Producer Avi Arad added, “Obviously there is danger and mistrust in the beginning, but they’ve learned to live with each other. It’s become a complicated marriage. Their codependence forces them to stay together, even though they’ve had it with each other. They’re going to have to come to an understanding.” We’ve seen a bit of that complicated marriage play out in the trailers where Venom attempts to make Eddie breakfast, much to the latter’s displeasure.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage finds Andy Serkis taking over from Ruben Fleischer in the director’s chair, and features Tom Hardy and Michelle Williams reprising their roles of Eddie Brock and Anne Weying, respectively, with Woody Harrelson also starring as Cletus Kasady, the man who will become Carnage. Venom: Let There Be Carnage also stars Naomie Harris as Frances Barrison/Shriek, a love interest of Kasady’s described by Serkis as a damaged soul who has been living in isolation. Venom: Let There Be Carnage will hit theaters on October 1, 2021.