Venom 2 is on the verge of starting production and bringing the Carnage

A production start date looms for Venom 2, Sony’s follow-up to Venom and its next installment in its growing Venom-verse.

Eddie and the symbiote are coming back for more in Venom 2 under director Andy Serkis and together they are expected to unleash real Carnage. Moreover, principal photography should begin soon.

Sony hinted they wanted to roll film by the end of 2019 and, according to ComicBook.com, a new listing in Production Weekly indicates Venom 2 enters production later this fall. The listing shows the sequel is slated for a date over two months from now, November 25th. “Fillmore” will be the working title.

Serkis, an actor and motion-capture artist known for Black Panther and Matt Reeves’ Planet of the Apes remakes, was selected to direct over two others this past summer. Since then, he has been doing some homework. In August, he tweeted a photo of himself and a close-up of Venom: Lethal Protector no. 6. His caption reads, “It’s happening. The Symbiote has found a host in me…” — a reference to how the alien costumes bond and survive.

Serkis is likely to continue the storyline teased in the end credits of Venom where Natural Born Killers star Woody Harrelson makes a cameo as Marvel’s infamous ginger psycho killer Cletus Kasady. “When I get out of here, there’s gonna be carnage,” Harrelson says in a sly wink at fans and an augur of things to come.

Readers know Kasady becomes Venom’s dreaded spawn and Spider-Man’s deadly foe, Carnage. His presence established, in Venom 2 it’s likely that he will get his symbiote and escape to wreak the havoc he talked about.

Though that is only a best guess at this point since the plot is under wraps, Harrelson is confirmed to be returning and Kasady will be expanded on. Cinematographer Robert Richardson indicated as much in an interview with Collider when he offered the following:

"“I think it’s unexplored yet, and it’s going to explode, and this film, I think, will help it explode, because you have a remarkable central character with Venom. But now you’ve got Woody Harrelson, who’s going to obviously make his own little entrance here, and we’ll see what else comes in with the Sony Marvel collaboration.”"

Sony and Marvel ended their collaboration over Spider-Man last month, leaving the former free to develop Tom Holland’s web-slinger and his eventual third movie on their own terms. They want to incorporate him into the Spider-Verse, sometimes called the Venom-Verse, they’re building and only time will tell if that starts with Venom 2. Holland filmed a cameo for the first Venom but Marvel ordered it to be cut.

Directed by Andy Serkis, Venom 2 will see the returns of Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock and Michelle Williams as Anne Weying and the addition of Woody Harrelson as Cletus Kasady. The film has a scheduled release date of October 2, 2020.