Andy Serkis says Tom Hardy is very involved in writing Venom sequel

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

It was announced just yesterday that Andy Serkis (MOWGLI: LEGEND OF THE JUNGLE) would be helming the upcoming VENOM sequel, and the director is already spilling some very small teases on where that sequel may take us. While on a panel for FX's upcoming A Christmas Carol mini-series at the Television Critics Associations summer press-tour (via /Film), Serkis said that he's "right at the beginning stages" of the sequel, but that he's already "got some very clear ideas about the journey I’d like to see visually and how we can take the characters into another dimension." It also turns out that Tom Hardy is helping to shape VENOM's future this time around as well.

Tom Hardy has made no secret that although he was pleased with the the film, some of his favourite bits, mostly of the stranger variety, wound up on the cutting room floor, but Serkis has indicated that Hardy have a larger hand in making sure some of those moments will survive in the sequel.

Tom is very involved with the writing with Kelly Marcel of the new story, so it’s very much centered around their take.

This doesn't necessarily mean that Tom Hardy will wind up with a co-writer credit, but it's nice to know that the actor is still passionate enough about the character to get so involved. Andy Serkis went on to say that he's wanted to work with Hardy for many years. "I’ve known Tom for many years and always admired him hugely as an actor and producer," Serkis said. "We’ve always wanted to work together directly. I’m deeply excited to work with Tom Hardy and to work with all the great actors who are involved in it. It’s a fantastic franchise. I’m really honored to have been asked to direct it and it feels like it’s a very contemporary story. I think it’s going to be hopefully an extraordinary piece of cinema." I'll admit that while I didn't have high hopes for VENOM initially, the film did wind up surprising me with how fun it was. Not to say that there's not room for some major improvements, but I'm feeling hopeful about the sequel this time around.

The mid-credit sequence in VENOM found Woody Harrelson making an appearance as Cletus Kasady/Carnage, obviously providing the set-up for a bigger role in the sequel. Ruben Fleischer, director of the first film, said earlier this year that he held off on introducting Carnage in order to properly establish Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and his bond with Venom.

We’d like to think that this movie will expand to other movies and Carnage is, I think, the most beloved of the Venom adversaries, with the exception of probably Spider-Man. And so we definitely didn’t want to include Carnage in this first movie because it felt like we wanted to establish Eddie and Venom and so that’s why we worked having Riot as our main adversary. But the intention or the ambition was to show that there are legs for the franchise in that a fan favorite let alone played by Woody Harrelson would be something we could look forward to in the future.

Fleischer added that he's also looking forward to witnessing Woody Harrelson explore his darker side. "When you think about a guy named Cletus, and off the comic book pages what he might be like, this insane serial killer, if you think about Woody in Natural Born Killers and the menace that he brought to that character, I think it’s really exciting to think about him going to that darker place again," Flesicher said. "Because recently he’s been playing more kind of heroic or comedic parts so to see him going to that kind of darker space, I think, is going to be incredible."