Venom 2 Snags Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Cinematographer

Venom 2 continues is rapid pace down Sony's production pipeline. After the recent announcement that Lord of the Rings and Planet of the Apes reboot star Andy Serkis would be directing the Spider-Man spinoff sequel, we now have word that Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon A Time In... Hollywood cinematographer Robert Richardson has boarded the project.

THR reports that Richardson - a three-time Oscar winner - is reuniting with Serkis after serving as his director of photography on the 2017 biopic Breathe, about the inventor of the respirator-controlled wheelchair. The trade also notes that this latest addition to Venom 2's creative team can be taken as further sign of just how fast Sony is moving on the project.

Here's what Serkis recently revealed about overseeing the Venom sequel:

"I'm right in the beginning stages, so I've got some very clear ideas about the journey, [and what] I'd like to see visually, and how we can take the characters into another direction," he explained (via Gamespot).

"I'm excited to work with all the great actors who are involved. It's a fantastic franchise," he said. "I'm really honored to have been asked to direct it. And it feels like it's a very, again, very contemporary story. And it's I think it's going to be, hopefully, a story piece of cinema."

He also added that Tom Hardy will once again be heavily involved in crafting the film's story: "Tom was very involved with the writing--with [screenwriter] Kelly Marcel--of the new story. So it's very much centered around their take."

The post-credits scene of Venom introduced Woody Harrelson's Cletus Kasady, the infamous serial killer who goes on in the comics to become the symbiote-wearing killer known as Carnage. The Venom post-credits scene all but screamed Carnage's arrival in Venom 2, which could adapt a Marvel Comics crossover storyline like "Maximum Carnage", which saw Venom having to team with Spider-Man and other heroes to stop Carnage and his gang of monstrous killers from massacring their way across Manhattan.

Don't expect Venom 2 to automatically be an R-Rated gurantee though: producer Avi Arad says even with Carnage in the picture, the rating likely won't budge:

"You know what? When you hear Venom…forget Venom. When you hear, Carnage, the only thing you can think of is R. But, if you know his story, if you really know the comic, there's no R here," Arad told Collider. "He's a tortured soul. It's not about what he does, because we never have to show the knife going from here to there, and the blood is pouring. What you have to show is, what is the motivation? Was he born like that, or it's someone we should feel for, because if you are succeeding to make a villain someone you can feel for, jackpot."

Venom 2 is slated for release on October 2, 2020.