The future of the Spider-Man franchise seems to grow more and more each day. The latest leading man to suit up as the web slinger, Tom Holland, has already confirmed that he is signed on to play the hero in at least three standalone films as well as in Avengers: Infinity War and possibly beyond. Currently, spinoff on the Spider-Man villain Venom is in the works, with Tom Hardy (Mad Max: Fury Road) signed on to play the film’s antihero with a plan to also include Holland’s Peter Parker. Also now in the mix, according to The Hollywood Reporter, is the character Carnage, to serve as the film’s Big Bad.
Both Venom and Carnage are symbiotes in the Marvel Comics. A symbiote is a fictional race of amorphous extraterrestrials that enter through the blood stream and create symbiotic bonds with their hosts, making the two a single entity and messing drastically with the original body’s chemistry. Symbiotes can move from host to host and are not necessarily attributed to one single human character. For example, the Venom Symbiote originally bonded with Spider-Man in the comics before moving onto its most infamous host Eddie Brock (Hardy) and taking on the name Venom.
The Carnage Symbiote’s most notable host is Cletus Kasady, a serial killer who merges with the gooey extraterrestrial (a spawned offspring of the Venom Symbiote) during a prison breakout. The Carnage Symbiote amplifies Kasady’s psychotic and deadly nature, making him one of the most terrifying, unstable, and murder-y villains that Marvel Comics has ever seen. It will be quite a rush to see Venom and Carnage go head-to-head in the spinoff film, especially since the two will have similar makeups and abilities.
As of now, Marvel has not released any further details about Venom‘s plot, Carnage’s potential role in the film, or the villain’s casting. It has been reported by Meet the Movie Press, however, that the Tony winning Hamilton creator Lin Manuel Miranda has expressed serious interest in wanting to play the character one day. Miranda currently has Disney in his back pocket (after writing the music for Moana and co-starring in Mary Poppins Returns) and may be able to pull off the casting. The darkness that Carnage would require is not something that Miranda is known for, but it could be interesting to see him take on a drastically new role.
Venom will be directed by Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland, Gangster Squad) working from a script by Jeff Pinkner and Scott Rosenberg. The film is set to hit theaters on October 5, 2018.
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