The sequel to 2018’s Venom brought one of the title character’s most famous antagonists to the big screen. Venom: Let There be Carnage pitted Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock against Woody Harrelson’s Cletus Kasady in a symbiote showdown that played a big part in resurrecting the box office in Fall 2021. Carnage wreaks havoc for the majority of the 97-minute film before he runs into Venom at the culminating third act, which leads into their highly-anticipated clash. The two go back and forth throughout, but Venom ultimately gets the upper hand when Kasady is separated from Carnage. To add insult to injury, Venom consumes Carnage to officially put an end to the chaotic crimson symbiote.
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While the outcome of this battle always seemed certain, new art suggests Venom might have had to adjust his game plan if some concepts made it into the live-action production.
This concept art shows Carnage at the cathedral, the site of the film’s final battle, rising from the embers with a fresh pair of wings. This aligns with some depictions of Carnage in the comics, as an extra powerful iteration of Kasady, known as Dark Carnage, rocks draconic wings in his final form. Venom himself has also taken to the skies on the page before, as he debuted his wings in a 2018 comic.
Given how his character ends in Let There be Carnage, it’s unlikely that fans will see Harrelson back in the Venom franchise. That said, development on a threequel is moving, as confirmed by Hardy on his Instagram. Hardy has previously offered insight into plans for a Venom 3 in the past, months before the film was made official.
“These things [usually] come in threes,” Hardy explainedย in a previous interview with Digital Spy. “If there’s going to be a new one โ and they depend heavily on the success of each individual one, so you can’t count on them ever happening again โ every one has got to be as if it was the last one. But I think it’s really important, if you go into something, thinking that one, two and three are the same… the same story, the same film. So that you don’t surprise yourself by being caught out by suddenly having to do a third from nowhere. There’s got to be some continuity into a third and fourth and fifth, and if somebody says ‘no,’ that’s fine. Let it go, and you move on to something else.”
Venom: Let There be Carnage is available on home video now.