Venom may not have resonated with critics, but it was a massive hit at the box office and a lot of fans are now very excited to see what comes next for Eddie Brock in Sony's Spider-Verse.
With Andy Serkis at the helm and Carnage expected to be the sequel's big bad, it's fair to say that
Venom 2 stands a chance of being one of 2020's best superhero movies (assuming it is indeed released next October) and now that Spider-Man is no longer part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the wall-crawler making some sort of cameo appearance makes perfect sense.
Now, a new report from Production Weekly reveals that
Venom 2 is looking to start filming on November 25th. We don't know where that will take place, but the working title is "Fillmore."
The Fillmore is a historic music venue in San Francisco, so that could be an indication that Eddie and his alien "other" will remain in the city as he hopefully embarks on becoming a Lethal Protector.
Are you guys excited for Venom 2?
Check out some awesome Venom concept art revealing
alternate takes on the character by hitting the "View List" button!
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.