Shooting on
Venom 2 continues in Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden in England, and some new story details have today been revealed about how Cletus Kasady and Frances Louise Barrison factor into the plot. Those two are, of course, better known as Carnage and Shriek, and their comic book team-ups always end in bloodshed with a lot of innocent people dying.
According to
HN Entertainment, when we first catch up with Cletus, he's set to be executed by the state of California for a series of murders he committed. However, things take a turn when he manages to escape Ravencroft alongside Shriek, a fellow inmate in the fictional facility.
It sounds like he won't have the Carnage symbiote when he escapes and, as expected, the
Venom sequel will explore Cletus' past. That means we'll be visiting the orphanage he burned down as a child, and it could be that Eddie Brock is the one who links twelve deaths from that fire to Cletus to the ones the authorities already know about, hence why he escapes to take his revenge.
That's all we know for now and it definitely sounds like director Andy Serkis is following the comic books, something that should make fans very happy indeed.
We'll hopefully learn more about
Venom 2 soon, especially as production is expected to eventually move to San Francisco for exterior shots (which means we can look forward to set photos).
To check out some Venom concept art - which shows Carnage - hit the "View List" button
or, if that's not showing, the "Next" button to click through each page with no loading times!
As you can see, Venom has no chest symbol here and looks a lot like the Ultimate version of the character as a result. Still, something is definitely better than nothing, as you'll see below.
Venom has a chest logo here and it looks a lot like the one from the comics. Unfortunately, Sony decided not to include that, presumably because this version of Venom hasn't met Spider-Man.
This is a very extreme take on Venom, but he looks awesome and it would be great to see the Symbiote evolve into this monstrous form in the sequel, especially when he faces off with Carnage!
These designs should definitely remind you of the comic books, as Venom is sporting more of a blue hue. Artist Matt Millard did a great job of imagining how the character could look on screen.
"One of my first task on this movie was to infuse some life in the Character, play around with Venom and make a series of quick studies showing him not as a 3D model but as a creature with a distinct personality (there is a sort of grotesque joyfulness in the character I really love, especially in the Lethal Protector comics)," concept artist Paolo Giandoso says about these pieces.
"Then I was asked to design ways for the Symbiote to slither over Eddie's face and create Venom," he continues.
"In my mind, the symbiote, being a shapeshifter, can potentially grow teeth, gums, eyes and tongues wherever it wants over his surface. All its matter has the potential to become these sort of features.
"It just chooses to create them on the face to arrange them in a way is more functional for a bipedal host. I wanted to give the idea of these features emerging and rearranging, lines of teeth moving and sliding around until they compose the final shape we all know." It's a shame we didn't see more of that green slime, eh?
So, yeah, that looks a lot like Carnage, right?
"I was tasked with concepting the whole symbiote final fight, mechanics and all, the way the Venom and his evil counterpart clash together and merge, until the final sacrifice scene after the rocket explosion," Giandoso explains. With that in mind, common sense says that Carnage was probably used as just a stand-in here.
"These images are a small section of a deleted scene from the beginning of the third act, in which Eddie confront his buddy about his hypocrisy and they finally make peace and move on to save the world," Giandoso notes. It would have been really cool to see this before the final battle but it arguably wasn't needed as these two managed to make amends in a somewhat simpler exchange.
Many thanks to artists David Masson, Matt Millard, and Paolo Giandoso.