Last year’s Venom overcame an extremely unfair critical beating to become a big hit for Sony Pictures. Fueled by a strong international showing, it grossed an impressive $856 million, making sequels inevitable.
Sure enough, we now know that Venom 2 is set for release in October 2020 under the directorial reins of Andy Serkis. It should begin shooting soon, too, with the post-credits scene in Venom making it all but certain the movie will revolve around Woody Harrelson’s Carnage. But today we’re hearing rumors that Sony has actually confirmed plans right up to Venom 3.
According to YouTube channel The Lords of the Long Box, the threequel will adapt hit 90s event series “Maximum Carnage.” The storyline featured Venom and Spider-Man teaming up to take down Carnage and a group of other supervillains he referred to as his ‘family.’ The situation got so bad that the people of New York were reduced to a bloodthirsty, violent, furious mob (though to be fair to Carnage, that’s many New Yorkers’ natural state already). It proved to be a smash hit as well, spawning an action figure line and a video game.
But how could Sony do the storyline justice without being able to use Spider-Man? It’s the tension between his relatively pacifistic methods and Venom’s inclination to violence that powers the story, and removing that may rob it of its power. Well, apparently by the time Venom 3 rolls around, the Sony Universe of Marvel Characters will have been integrated into the MCU, according to The Lords of the Long Box.
It’s here that I get very skeptical. Venom ruled itself out of being a secret MCU movie by making the existence of aliens a shock to its characters, so retroactively crowbarring the events into the Marvel Cinematic Universe isn’t going to make sense. Plus, Sony proved with Venom that they can go at it on their own without having to piggyback on Marvel Studios’ credibility.
However, while I’d be surprised if this happened, I don’t think you can rule it out entirely. I mean, Venom and Spidey have got to throw down at some point, right? I guess it’s up to you to decide though if this YouTube channel has the inside scoop on a film that’s got to be at minimum five years away from release.
