2018's Venom may only have a 30% score on Rotten Tomatoes, but the movie grossed a whopping $856 million on a $100 million budget. Moviegoers appeared to embrace Tom Hardy's wacky take on Eddie Brock's dynamic with his alien "other," but the hope is that Venom: Let There Be Carnage (which sees Andy Serkis take over as director) will still be an improvement on the first movie.
During a recent Esquire profile, Hardy opened up about what he hoped to achieve with Venom and the response that followed. Clearly, he's pretty happy with the way things went.
"There were other objectives with Venom, but they were minor compared to the main objective: can I land Eddie Brock and Venom as an established Marvel superhero? Venom and Eddie Brock are part of a universal canon among those who know about superheroes, so I don’t want to scratch the record. I’d like to be part of that legacy and not bugger it up completely. Not bring shame on it."
"Ha! You’ve got Black Panther, Thor, Wonder Woman, Venom; there’s not one that you go, ‘Ooh God, have you seen that? That’s [frick]ing terrible! Avoid the [frick]ing terrible one!’ Maybe people dislike it, maybe people really like it, but it’s not dismissed," Hardy concluded.
The actor actually did more than just star in the upcoming sequel as he'll receive a "Story by" credit after working on the script with screenwriter Kelly Marcel. Throw in the fact that he's also a producer now, and Hardy isn't taking any of that lightly. "A producer is what I’d be doing anyway if I was just acting, I’d just be arguing with the studio about it."
"I’m pleased with it. I’m really pleased with it," he said of the sequel and the evolution of Eddie's relationship with Venom. "I’ve got to be careful how I speak, because I’m a studio man. I’m an exec!"
The site did attempt to get one spoiler out of Hardy when they put it to him that Toxin might be making an appearance. With that, the actor is said to have performed "some frantic hand gestures" that the reporter took as meaning "stay tuned." The cop turned anti-hero - who is decked out in a symbiote that's the spawn of Carnage - does seem like a character worth exploring on screen, anyway.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage currently remains on track to be released in theaters "this fall."