Mounting any big budget production is a logistical and scheduling nightmare, especially one set in a major city. That’s one of the major reasons why a lot of movies set in densely populated places like London or New York very rarely shoot entirely on location, with the second unit doing most of the legwork while the rest is captured elsewhere or on a soundstage.
The team behind Venom: Let There Be Carnage discovered that firsthand when the time came to pitch up in Eddie Brock’s home city of San Francisco, which happened to be at exactly the same time The Matrix Resurrections was in town, forcing the crew to get creative.
In an interview with ScreenRant, location manager Christopher Kusiak revealed that Let There Be Carnage actually features footage of Resurrections filming, such was the close proximity between the two blockbuster sequels during their respective stays in The Golden City.
“Lots of stuff impacted filming. A lot of our driving shots went away because Matrix controlled all of downtown… We ended up moving a stunt up onto the top of the parking garage because we couldn’t get to the areas we wanted because of The Matrix. But if we would’ve been there first, it probably would’ve gone the other way. The helicopters were actually on the Matrix movie. The Matrix was filming at the same time so we were catching part of their activity on camera.”
That’s a neat little Easter Egg for fans to consider when they see helicopters swooping around the San Francisco skyline during repeat viewings of Venom: Let There Be Carnage; one of the choppers might actually be part of The Matrix Resurrections busying itself with a scene from another high-profile 2021 release packed with CGI spectacle and grandstanding action sequences.
