Venom: Let There Be Carnage, the extremely on-the-nose sequel to 2018’s Venom, has gotten its first trailer ahead of its pandemic-delayed September 24th release date. It promises more of the peculiar buddy cop comedy and Tom Hardy’s over-the-top acting that made the original a surprisingly fun watch.
Picking up after the last movie, the trailer shows that Eddie Brock and the Venom symbiote have achieved a sort of domestic peace: a “no eating people” sign is tacked up on the wall of Brock’s apartment, and Venom helps Eddie make breakfast in what might be the worst Ratatouille impression of all time. He’s trying.
Things shift focus to Cletus Kasady, a murderous serial killer (Woody Harrelson, doing his best Dark Knight Joker impression) who gets a hold of his own symbiote, the titular Carnage, setting up the movie’s headline brawl. (Presumably, the film will have some sort of explanation for why on earth Kasady is being selected, of all people, to be the test subject for an incredibly powerful alien symbiote.)
Despite the almost-exclusive focus on Spider-Man villains in the trailer, there’s still no sign of the heroic web-slinger himself (whether played by Tom Holland, Andrew Garfield, Tobey Maguire, or any of the Spider-Verse crew). That’s presumably due to the intricate corporate negotiations around the character’s appearance in Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. (Venom and its sequel are made by Sony, not Kevin Feige’s Marvel Studios, which produces the Holland Spider-Man films and almost every other major live-action Marvel film these days.)
Also of note: the trailer prominently focuses on the fact that Venom: Let There Be Carnage will debut exclusively in theaters. With vaccines rolling out and theaters starting to reopen, it seems that Sony is betting heavily on the fact that crowds will be ready to come out in person to see the movie on September 24th.
