Venom: Let There Be Carnage has been voted one of the most anticipated 2021 sequels. The Tom Hardy movie was originally slated to come out in October of this year, but due to COVID-19, production was shut down, forcing Sony Pictures to move the release date to June of 2021.
Of course, anticipation for the Venom sequel shouldn’t be all that surprising considering the first movie earned more than $800 million worldwide. But when you compare it to the other follow-ups coming out next year, the love for the symbiote is certainly a bit staggering.
Why, you ask? Well, here are the current release dates for upcoming sequels in 2021: Fast 9 (April 2nd), Keanu Reeves’ Matrix 4 (May 21st), Jurassic World: Dominion (June 11th), Venom 2 (June 25), and the LeBron James and Looney Tunes-starring Space Jam: A New Legacy (July 16th). The back half of the year, meanwhile, includes: Spider-Man 3 (November 5th), Fantastic Beasts 3 (November 12th), the Tom Cruise-led Mission: Impossible 7 (November 19th), the James Cameron-directed Avatar 2 (December 17th) and Robert Downey Jr.’s Sherlock Holmes 3 (December 22nd). But let’s take a closer look at some of these, shall we?
The premise and cast for Jurassic World: Dominion should obviously build hype. Sam Neill and Laura Dern are reprising their roles alongside Jeff Goldblum and based on Chris Pratt’s comments about the story, it’s shaping up to be an epic conclusion to this new trilogy. But Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom wasn’t a memorable entry in the franchise, which could turn off some casual moviegoers.
The Fantastic Beasts series, meanwhile, is the definition of redundancy. The second movie received terrible reviews and box office fell by $150 million worldwide. Warner Bros. has committed a lot of money to keeping the Harry Potter universe alive, but with not one, not two, but three more sequels coming, I wouldn’t be surprised if this series eventually finds its way to HBO Max considering the future landscape of movie distribution.
Elsewhere, you can lump Matrix 4, Space Jam 2, Avatar 2 and Sherlock Holmes 3 into one group. They’re all sequels to dominant franchises that may or may not reel in audiences again. It’ll have been at least a decade between sequels for all of these series, too, and the studios are certainly banking on nostalgia.
That leaves Fast 9, Spider-Man 3 and Mission: Impossible 7 as the only films with significant amounts of currency (both literally and figuratively) heading into their next installment.
Based on these factors, it makes sense that Venom 2 is one of the most anticipated sequels of 2021. Sure, the first movie was goofy, but there’s a lot of love and passion for the anti-hero. Plus, you never know what Hardy is going to do when he’s in a big film. Wear a mask, change his voice or jump in a tank of lobsters and start eating them.
