With widespread vaccination access (hopefully, fingers crossed, keep up the pressure about waiving those patents) starting to put COVID-19 in the rearview, movie theaters and the studios whose output fills their screens are on the comeback trail. And while the likes of Marvel Studios and The Fast Saga are marking this occasion with earnest tributes to The Power Of The Movies, the newly released trailer for Venom: Let There Be Carnage has no such pretensions. It opens with a full embrace of the franchise’s position as the unorthodox buddy comedy within Sony’s cinematic Spider-Verse, a slice from Eddie Brock’s (Tom Hardy) life with the voracious symbiote (you say “sim-bee-it,” and Venom says “sim-buy-oat”) that bonded to him in the first Venom. Their apartment is a disaster area, Venom’s singing along to “Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off,” and breakfast is thrown together in spectacularly sloppy fashion.
But this is a superhero movie, so it can’t all be messy roommate gags and Axel Foley jackets. Because just like Eddie’s life, this trailer does not belong to him: From the moment Woody Harrelson chimes in with a series of sing-song taunts and rhetorical questions, the enterprise is hijacked by Cletus Kasady, the serial killer introduced in Venom’s mid-credits sequence and the host for the sequel’s antagonist, Carnage. Sure, there are glimpses of Venom’s toothy, “This better not awaken anything in me” visage and brief introductions to Naomie Harris as the sound-manipulating baddie Shriek and Stephen Graham as Daily Bugle-reading cop Detective Mulligan. But the voice in our head is Harrelson’s, Kasady’s agent-of-chaos MO forming Sony’s bid for a Joker of its very own—albeit one whose desire to watch the world burn comes with all manner of body-horror tendrils. Those appendages are brought to the screen under the guidance of motion-capture maestro Andy Serkis, who’s planting a directorial flag in another part of Marvel’s onscreen multiverse after playing Ulysses Klaue in Avengers: Age Of Ultron and Black Panther.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage premieres in theaters September 24, 2021.
80 Comments
I actually hope they play off that incredibly lame name drop from the first movie, and make a whole running gag about how he really wants his supervillain name to be Carnage, but no one will say it, and he keeps making increasingly awkward and desperate attempts to slip it into his lines.
“Hey, my Honda Civic just broke down. I need to push it over to the curb. Do you think you could help me give it a shove – a “car nudge”, if you will?”
What’s more amazing, that Michelle Williams returned for this, or that she’s still stuck with the same crappy wig?
Definitely the wig thing.
I think she did the movie because she wanted to be in a blockbuster her kid might watch. I was hoping there would be more of her scenes with the symbiote.
The symbiote-kiss-to-transfer was probably the most inspired bit of the movie.
It will be revealed in this movie that the wig is also a symbiote.
This actually kinda amusing trailer makes me wonder if I have overlooked the original Venom and should have watched it.
I skipped it up until like, last… December? I was bored, it was on Netflix, I gave it a whirl. It was fun! Absolutely Hardy/Venom steal the show and often feel like they’re in a different movie, but it was simply FUN. It did some creative and neat things with the powers. Hardy was a delight. The stupid parts weren’t Michael Bay hideous, just meh. It was brisk! YMMV but I quite enjoyed it. Probably will watch again closer to this one.
I saw at the cinema with mates. The general consensus was that it was goofy. Not terrible, but equally not brilliant.This trailer feels like it leans in the goofiness a bit more, but then Carnage is also there (and he ain’t goofy).Considering how much I dislike Venom as a character, it’s always been slightly weird that I don’t mind Carnage. Maximum Carnage was a bit too long though.
I mean, he’s pretty goofy for a serial killer bonded to a symbiote
It was crazy and fun and it was also really bad in spots too. Glad it I didn’t pay money to watch it but also glad I watched it.
^^ Best, most accurate review in the thread imo
It knows exactly what it is, and knows exactly what it wants to do. I had fun with it.
under the right circumstances with the right mindset and the right expectations it’s almost great!
I didn’t see it either, but the “Venom as annoying roommate” gag at the beginning of the trailer was pretty funny.
I watched it on the promise of it being like a lesser version of Leigh Whanell’s Upgrade. It delivered on that.
I watched it on the promise of it being like a lesser version of Leigh Whanell’s Upgrade. It delivered on that.
The first one is okay. Not a bad movie to shut your brain off and watch
It’s was fun. It wasn’t the best but it was fun. I thought “Upgrade” was going to be horrible too but that turned out to be fantastic. I only bring that up because I kind of wish the people that did that movie did the first Venom.
I have only seen it once and wasn’t impressed, but the overall impression I had while watching was “at least if Michelle Williams is getting fucked over again with her pay in this movie, she wasn’t doing a lot to begin with.”
You should watch if only to see Hardy make the strangest possible acting choices imaginable.
He really showed his true range of incomprehensible mumbles.
I said this on iO9, but as a Nineties Teen(tm), I was smack-dab in the middle of the target market for VENOM: LETHAL PROTECTORRRR and MAXIMUM CARNAGGGGE the MULTIMEDIA EXPERIENNNNNCEThat 14 issue maxi-series crossover (which I bought all of) is dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. Carnage is dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. The video game didn’t have a two-player mode! Dumb, dumb, dumb. I can’t wait for this movie. =D
Ah yes those were the days. I can’t believe I bought all those issues, but I was mad Marvel geek in my late teens/early 20’s. I still stand by the premise that Venom is a rubbish character, with all that protecting the innocents mantra beyond stupid.
Yet on the other hand I liked Carnage. Probably because he was so OTT that it was hard to take him seriously, even if he was a vicious serial killer.
I like Carnage enough too, he was just SO fucking overexposed. Even dumb teen me read that crossover and thought: They’re killing HOW MANY people and the only people who show up to fight Carnager and his c-list losers are Cap, Deathlok, and some other d-tier heroes? Like, I get it, “comics,” but whoooooof. FOURTEEN. ISSUES. Also: Yes to buying all the mad marvel at the time lol. The prelude to the clone saga crossover. Age of Apocalypse. Phalanx Covenant. Onslaught. etc…
Venom’s whole “protecting the innocents” mantra makes no sense when you look back on his earliest appearances where he needlessly kills bystanders and cops.It was basically Marvel realizing that the readers loved the character and they had to turn him into a protagonist, so they retconned this mantra onto him.
Yeah, with very few exceptions…the Marvel crossovers from 1990 onward ain’t all that great.
I don’t even know of a crossover I could say I really enjoy. I generally hate them for disrupting good stories going on in the actual books I’m reading. I just re-read Brubaker’s cap. The ONLY good thing about Civil War is Ed spinning an amazing story out of it, which didn’t even need the stupid crossover. There’s this huge bit of WTF when all of a sudden, Norman Osborne is in charge of HAMMER and SHIELD/Tony/Nick are basically nowhere to be found. Also Dark Avengers! I knew enough to know what had happened in whatever stupid crossover, but it’s so fucking obnoxious. Brubaker does a good job with everything he’s given, but yeesh.
Best crossover during my peak Marvel collecting period.Acts of Vengeance
X-Tinction AgendaPhalanx Covenant, mainly because we got Generation X out of itand somewhat surprisingly Infinity War (because of all the doppelgangers).
The video game was actual awesome because of the false finish and I knew it was coming because I read the comics and my brother was sure I passed it. I finished the game in that one shot when I got to the end and man it was fun. Yes the Mini series was lame (now issue 361 of Amazing and the 3 part in carnage 1st run was great)…. I think this movie looks like shit because Venom wasn’t good and Venom being funny is lame as fuck. Let’s get a funny Spider-man in the movies and then worry about funny Venom.Woody will crush this though!
Nah, I loved Venom. And venom being darkly funny is fairly in line with 90s antihero venom. Video game was great, I just don’t know why it didn’t have a 2p mode!
That’s fine, I liked Venom pre Anti-hero stuff and couldn’t stand him after that.
This looks like some silly, dumb fun, much like the first Venom. Will watch it high on a Friday night once it’s on Netflix. Although not having a hard R rating for a Carnage movie seems kinda weird.
Anybody wanna buy a copy of ASM361 cheap? I’ll part with it for $300 at this point, imagine what you’ll be able to sell it for when the movie comes out!
Goddamn what crap. Honestly, I would have thought this would be beneath Tom Hardy (like This Means War) but I was wrong.OTOH I am sure it will buy him a nice house with a pool ………… ————The Michael Cain School of Rational Thinking
“beneath” lol. He’s clearly enjoying himself and his contributions to the first flick are what made it fun. Wtf elitism are you on about?
‘Let there be carne’? YUM!
Remember the good old days when trailers started at the start, rather than five seconds after the start, meaning you have to be told when the start is, which isn’t at the start.
I haven’t a clue. Anyone?
I think it’s meant to create a buffer for autoplay on Twitter and Facebook, but that’s just my speculation.
It’s there because viewer data shows that people are more likely to watch the whole trailer if there’s an even shorter teaser in front of the regular trailer. Put the trailer out twice, one with the teaser and the other without, and people will watch more of the trailer with the teaser.Really, that’s all. It’s a function of the miniscule levels that modern media was whittled our attention spans down to.
Huh. Didn’t know that, thanks. Also kinda depressing.
This somehow looks worse than the first movie.Why is there so much comedy? Why does Venom sound like Arnold Schwartzenegger? WHERE IS THAT WIG FOR WOODY!?Pass.
The comedy and the silly Venom voice are the only things that made the first one watchable. No one wants a serious hard R Venom story. He’s a stupid 90s characters
I honestly think people are misremembering venom. Outside of his first story or two, he’s had comedy as part of his shtick forever. ESPECIALLY when they gave him his first mini and leaned into him as an antihero. He’s nowhere near serious. Hardy is definitely doing a new and unique take, but it’s hardly removed from the “sacred” source material. An rrated “serious and seriously gory you guys” venom flick would be DULL
Honestly the wig here is much less silly than the Ronald McDonald number from the stinger of the first movie.
Why are super dangerous criminals always the subject of medical experiments that make them more powerful? Wouldn’t ANYONE be a better choice?
Yeah, if you’re going to go with a criminal, go with a forger or an embezzler or an identity thief.
There are a lot of white collar criminals in there for basically moving money from one bank account to another and have never thrown a punch in their lives.
They might have more pesky rights.
“You have a choice, scumbag. You can submit to this dangerous scientific experiment, or you can serve out the rest of your sentence for screening DVDs on oil-rigs.”
I was under the impression that it wasn’t a medical experiment, but that he already had the symbiote, and it was averting his execution by lethal injection (thus the crowd of sad people watching). You see his blood go UP the tube to stop the injection while the green stuff is supposed to be going in.
I think that was suppose to be his execution. I assume he got the parasite ahead of that
“Igor…where did you get this brain?”“I don’t know…Abby someone? Abby normal?”“Are you saying that I put an ABNORMAL brain into a 7.5 foot tall gorilla? Is that what you’re telling me?!”
“SEDAGIVE?”
VENOM was silly fun, and this looks like it’s more of the same but maybe a bit more aware of what it is…?Yes please.
It looks very similar to the first. Doesn’t seem like they went bigger like with most sequels.
As someone who has no experience in the Venom comic book lore may I ask if every foil of Venom is just another human infected with a symbiote like in these first two movies?
It has the Marvel label. Were you expecting a villain that isn’t basically identical to the hero?
Venom is a foil of spiderman. In the comics je’s a buff looking spiderman because the symbiote got fucked up by spiderman’s radioactive genes and then infected Eddie Brock, who was a buff guy. Carnage is his asexually crested offspring I believe, so that’s why he looks like him. There are some other symbiotes and I believe all are clones or offspring of venom. He doesn’t have any real foils other than spiderman while the other symbiotes are more like frenemies.
Spider-Man’s radioactive genes didn’t affect the symbiote at all. Spidey rejected the symbiote when he found out it was alive, it was imprisoned for awhile, escaped, tried to bond with Spidey again, and eventually found Eddie and bonded with him.
His impact on the symbiote are why it and its offspring look like a fucked up spiderman suit regardless of who is wearing it.
They have done more than one origin story of the symbiotes that showed where the Venom symbiote came from, and they all looked like Venom with the white spider symbol on the chest – long before they met Spidey on Battleworld.
The prime symbiote looks like some guy in spooky plate armour. Anything outside of the venom line are tentacle monsters or random humanoids. You’re probably thinking of non-canon what ifs that made the symbiote into a bunch of spiderman suits despite that making no sense at all.
Funnybook Law #17: Every superhero has at least one twisted duplicate.
There’s a lotttttttt of at-least-ones as far as Venom is concerned.
A LOTTTTTTTTTTT.
Well Spider-Man was off the table so
not enough Williams in that trailer. but tbh looks fun!
symbiote (you say “sim-bee-it,” and Venom says “sim-buy-oat”)
Well, Venom seems to have one of the two accepted correct pronunciations, according to Merriam-Webster. So if there really is anyone out there pronouncing it “sim-bee-it”, stop that and either pronounce it “sim-buy-oat” like Venom does, or, if you prefer, “sim-bee-oat”.
Unbelievable. Okay, the link function is completely broken. In my comment above, the “according to Merriam-Webster” is supposed to be a link to the Merriam-Webster entry for symbiote.But because Kinja is so utterly terrible, it has instead taken those words, stripped the link, and shoved them in the front of the sentence.
I find myself having the same meh reaction to this as the first film.
Indifferent to the film but it’s always nice to hear Nilsson’s excellent version of his song One, instead of the more popular cover by Three Dog Night.
I love Venom in the comics, I did not like part 1 at all. He needs Spider-man in it, it was so lame. But hey it made a ton of money.This looks fucking awful but Woody will be fucking great at least. But man this series seems so much like Amazing Spider-man Series where it’s very weak.
Wow, I’m surprised the first one is getting so much like. Especially at this site. Not love but like, because of fun. I’m not judging though, because I haven’t seen it.But come on, don’t tell me you likers so much as cracked a smile during that dreadful breakfast bit.
laughed, even
Mentally preparing myself for another year of stumbling on Eddie/Venom porn online. 😫
Honestly, I’m more excited to see Andy Serkis directing this than I am for any kind of sequel to Venom. His Mowgli movie was rad. So, so dark. Even just going by this trailer, it seems like this will have vastly more personality than the first film. I still struggle with the Dr Claw voice and am pretty surprised to see Michelle Williams is back, as she and Hardy have zero chemistry and their relationship was one of the weakest parts of an already weak film, but whatever. Hopefully this one can figure out better ways around Sony’s weird ‘we want to make a serial killer/split personality movie for kids!’-esque content restrictions.
Ah yes, the old “let have a really shitty CGI good guy fight a really shitty CGI bad guy with nearly identical powers.” It worked so well in Ed Norton’s Hulk, glad to see them rolling it out here again.It’s like they said hey, let’s really double down on everything that made the first movie pure shit. The only thing they didn’t do is give mushmouth Hardy a jawbreaker to suck on the whole time.
Seriously, though, what kind of convenience store runs out of chocolate?
One that has Venom as a customer?I like how they are using this part from the Daniel Way (?) mini-series where Venom eats a lot of chocolate because one of the chemicals in it is something he needs to live.
Heh. Hard to believe Sound of Metal’s Riz Ahmed was the villain in the first one. And I cannot believe Michelle Williams came back.
Without Spider-Man, these still don’t feel right to me. But at least they are leaning into what worked last time- Tom Hardy and the tone. He’s so weird in these; Venom certainly feels different from other comic book movies, and there’s something amusing about how awful it’s totally fine with being.