In a mid-credits scene for the new Venom movie, an incarcerated Woody Harrelson teases that when he gets out of prison, “there’s gonna be carnage.” While this moment was surely enough to get a fair few fans excited to see the arrival of one of Eddie Brock’s greatest enemies in the yet-to-be-announced sequel, some viewers were surely left wondering why there hadn’t been any Carnage for the last two hours.
In an interview with Collider, producer Matt Tolmach offered a response to this query, arguing that setting up the backstories of Cletus Kasady and Eddie Brock would’ve proved a bit much for one movie.
“You have two origins, and it really limits. We thought about it long and hard. It limits what you can do with the origin of Venom. So, what do you do with that? Well, then the movie itself becomes the origin of Venom, and then Carnage enters the equation. That was always the idea, that you would be setting it up, from the very beginning.”
While some fans may have been disappointed that we didn’t get to see Carnage the first time around, it makes sense to keep the focus on Venom himself for the character’s standalone debut, while giving one of his most popular foes the space he needs for his own development in the next film. Tolmach’s answer echoes an earlier explanation offered by director Ruben Fleischer, too, who recalled how they “really wanted this movie to be about Venom,” which meant saving Carnage for later.
When the carnage does come, however, it will mostly likely be of the PG-13 variety, with co-producer Avi Arad previously alleging that gruesome spectacles won’t be necessary for capturing the psychological essence of this serial killer villain. Given how disappointed many fans were that the first movie didn’t land an R-rating, this may not be the news that you want to hear. But going by the numbers that Venom is currently doing at the box office, it’s likely that the team at Sony’s feeling little incentive to change their approach.
