Tom Hardy is back as Eddie Brock in Venom: Let There Be Carnage. The sequel to 2018's Venom sees Eddie and his symbiote going up against serial killer Celtus Kasady (Woody Harrelson) who is host to an alien all his own. Directed by Andy Serkis, the movie also sees the return of Michelle Williams as Anne Weying and Reid Scott as Anne's fiancé Dr. Dan Lewis. New cast member Naomie Harris plays Frances Barrison aka Shriek.
Screen Rant spoke with Hardy about his involvement in writing Venom 2, why the movie is a love story, and the future of the character.
Screen Rant: I have had the Venom song stuck in my head for three years, so I'm so excited to talk about the sequel. I want to start with bringing Andy Serkis on board. I read that you had personally asked him. What did you feel like he brought to the Venom-verse that was unique?
Tom Hardy: I reached out to him. It was a unanimous decision but within Sony. And when it came to the point of looking for the director for Venom 2 who would be the person that we felt would be most the right fit? You know, the right fit to push to the next level, you know, what we wanted to achieve. And obviously, Andy covers bases immediately for me and my partner in crime, Kelly Marcel.
Andy has not only a language that works in two ways, he's directed in some aspects, an apprenticeship, or an internship if you like, with Peter Jackson on the Lord of the Rings, and Hobbits and stuff. He's taken care of second unit directing on that and been privy to multiple sets on an epic scale, but he's also delivered, arguably, some of the greatest character depictions within fantasy in the last two decades. And he's arguably one of the best character actors we've got in our generation. So he has a language as an actor, he has a language as a director. He has the directed Breathe, he's directed Jungle Book.
It's not his first rodeo, and I really like him. He's a cool guy, you know? And we wanted to work together for a long time, so it just makes so much sense that we had somebody who could see what we were trying to do, what we went to achieve on all of the levels, and on the size of the job that had to be done, you know someone had to do it, and Andy was the guy.
What I loved about this movie is that it kind of explores the period after this honeymoon phase ends. And I know you have a story by credit here. Did you approach aspects of Let There Be Carnage just like you would a love story? Because I love that there was kind of an underlying rom-com going on there.
Tom Hardy: Yeah. It's a hundred percent a love story. I mean, it opens up with, "This is a love story." There's an absurd, surreal element to that. But it's not what you think, it's about a kind of dysfunctional love. There's a buddy movie there. There's The Odd Couple, there's The Seven Year Itch. There's an element of Thelma and Louise, or Natural Born Killers, or True Romance with the other couple in that movie as well. And there's these two couples in there. Well, there's three because there's Dr. Dan and Anne as well.
So it's like, three couples intertwined in very different relationships, with varying degrees of functionality, or dysfunction, as you would like it, in a sort of operatic ride of thrills; with ultimately, Carnage and Cletus Cassidy being the nemesis of Venom and his son. So, you've got a father-son movie too in there.
So we came at it from lots of angles of, how do we make this? How do we get more out of our characters that we love? How do we introduce new ones? How do we make a comparative reflection between the couples and love? And what's that about? But also it be good fun.
What do you see as the future of Venom? Do you have more ideas you want to tackle? Is there a plan in place for more movies?
Tom Hardy: Oh, there's always a plan in place for more movies, there has to be. You can't start one without thinking about the next one, like in that aspect, because this one will lead to that one. If it goes, you know? So you have to leave your lay lines out just in case. You know it's successful, which you hope it is, and you put everything into it, and make sure that this film if it's the last film that we make is fully rounded and is just standalone. There will always be a reach out to the next, and then there [are] some very interesting options that can happen with Venom within the Venom-verse and within the universe that surrounds.
The multi-verse is cracking open a bit, yeah.
Tom Hardy: Yeah, it's really hard because for me and the guys in the Venom-verse, we came together under Sony and that's who we work for, that's who we run with, that's our team, you know? And obviously, we just look at it as creatives and say, "Look at all of these things we could play with." But we really have to establish ourselves as somebody that maybe they want to play with. Maybe somebody that belongs in that world first. And do you like what we represent as Venom? Is this established? Once it's established, we then have to continue our Venom-verse.
But at the same time, we will always [be] looking to campaign to play with all the brothers and sisters who are out there, do you know what I mean? Whether we can connect the dots, that's up to the constellations, and that's above my pay grade, but we would be remiss not to think about that when we're working on the material.
