Venom 2 gets a new title and release date

While nearly all the Hollywood blockbuster releases over the next few months had been bumped back or even delayed as far as next year due to the Coronavirus lockdown, there were a couple that had been holding fast to their release dates. But while that made sense for a movie like Dune, which had been in production for ages, when people noticed that Venom 2 was still sitting in its 2 October 2020 slot it raised a few eyebrows way up. Well, you can put those ascending face caterpillars right back down as Sony will no longer be releasing Venom 2 this year. They also won’t be calling it Venom 2.

As revealed by star Tom Hardy with a brief logo tease on Instagram, the upcoming sequel will now officially be titled Venom: Let There Be Carnage. The film has also been pushed back by eight months to 25 June 2021. That is smack dab in the middle of the busiest and hottest blockbuster period of the year, which seems to indicate that Sony is very confident in the movie they’re getting here.

Admittedly, the first film was a big success for the studio in 2018, earning $856 million off a production budget somewhere in the region of $115 million. And that movie was just… solid. Decent performances, great chemistry between Hardy’s Eddie Brock and the symbiote, and some fun action beats, but a seriously lame villain, some lacklustre directing in places, and a few laughably bad plot holes dragged it down a touch.

As the new title reminds us though, the upcoming sequel will see the introduction of fan-favourite villain Carnage. The civilian identity of the red symbiote baddie was already introduced thanks to a post-credits stinger in the first film showing us a hilariously wigged Woody Harrelson as mass murderer Cletus Kasady in prison declaring that “there’s gonna be carnage”. Carnage’s popularity, combined with the fact that we also now have another fan-favourite actor/filmmaker in the director’s chair in Andy Serkis, could very well justify Sony’s decision to throw down the proverbial blockbuster gauntlet here.

And that’s not even taking into consideration the ever-present rumours that Tom Holland has filmed a Spider-Man cameo for this movie, which officially moves Sony’s Venom movies and their Morbius flick into a corner of the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe. All of that could generate a whole lot of hype that may just see Venom: Let There Be Carnage actually crack $1 billion at the global box office. Unless, of course, the world is still reeling from a virus. Not even a comic book alien symbiote can stand up to that.

Last Updated: April 22, 2020