We haven’t seen the last of Tom Hardy‘s Eddie Brock aka Venom. After starring in 2018’s Venom, Hardy is now officially confirmed to return for the sequel Venom 2. “I can say that Tom Hardy will be back, magnificently playing that character as no one else can,” producer Amy Pascal told Fandango. “When you think of Venom, you’ll never be able to think of anyone but Tom Hardy sitting in that bathtub of lobsters. And once you saw Tom Hardy do this character, that’s all you needed to know.”
While Venom wasn’t, ahem, critically loved, it went on to earn over $855 million worldwide making it a clear success for the studio. Plus the potential for a sequel was teased as early as in the first end credits scene of Venom, when Eddie Brock took up journalism once more to interview an inmate at San Quentin prison: convicted serial killer Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson, wearing what might be the world’s worst curly red wig). “When I get out of here — and I will — there’s gonna be carnage,” Kasady promised.
That “carnage” hint is less of an Easter egg and more of a giant neon sign pointing to Harrelson playing the sequel’s big bad Carnage, one of Venom’s biggest villains in the comics. He’s a psychotic serial killer with no moral compass who takes pleasure in the blood and violence he brings after he bonds with a symbiote. Whether or not Harrelson is also returning for the sequel remains to be seen, but at least now we know that Hardy is officially back for Venom 2.
And could he potentially be joined by another Marvel/Sony character as well? Pascal also teased (emphasis on teased) that Tom Holland‘s Spider-Man couldshow up in Venom 2.
“Everybody would love to see that,” she said. “You never know someday … it might happen. I can say that we’ve had a fantastic partnership and you never know what’s going to happen. We have a lot of stories to tell about Spider-Man, in every facet. We have big plans for Tom Holland to be a part of everything.” When asked to clarify on that “everything,” Pascal laughed. “Every movie we ever do!” Pascal added. “He needs to be in every movie that I ever work on!” So that’s not actually revealing anything but it’s good to know that Sony and Marvel are open to the idea of having Hardy and Holland share the screen together. That might be enough to wash 2007’s Spider-Man 3 from our collective memory.
