Yes, Woody Harrelson is returning as Carnage in Venom sequel

Venom was the surprise hit of 2018, making nearly a billion dollars at the box office despite having lines like this:

What can I say? People really took to the story of Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy), a journalist who binds with an alien symbiote and suddenly finds himself needing to balance the rigors of his work with the demands of a parasite who wants to kill stuff and eat people. By the end of the movie, the two have come to an understanding that they can do that, but only to really bad guys. So…Venom’s a hero…?

Maybe it just takes someone a lot worse to put Venom’s antics in context. Enter Cletus Kasady, a red-haired serial killer who, in the comics, binds with his own alien symbiote to become the supervillain Carnage. Kasady has far fewer misgivings about killing people than does Brock, so while there might not exactly be a “good” guy in Venom’s story, there is one who’s way worse than the other.

Venom introduced Kasady in a post-credits scene, where he was played by Woody Harrelson:

Now, obviously Sony is making a sequel to Venom, to be directed by Andy Serkis. We’ve pretty much assumed that Harrelson would return as the villain, but the sequel’s cinematographer Robert Richardson cleared up any doubt while talking to Collider. “I think it’s unexplored yet,” he said of the the material covered by the sequel, “and it’s going to explode, and this film, I think, will help it explode, because you have a remarkable central character with Venom, but now you’ve got Woody Harrelson, who’s going to obviously make his own little entrance here, and we’ll see what else comes in with the Sony Marvel collaboration.”

So there you go: expect Carnage when Venom 2 drops into theaters on October 2, 2020.

I’m guessing this interview is a little old, because Richardson — who’s served as cinematographer on everything from JFK to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood; dude’s got skills — mentions “the Sony Marvel collaboration.” As we learned last week, that connection is now over, with Marvel no longer allowed access to the character of Spider-Man or any of the characters in his orbit. However, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man could theoretically show up in Venom 2, Venom traditionally being an antagonist for your friendly neighborhood web-slinger, but if Carnage is involved, I imagine that will provide plot enough for one movie.

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