News broke last night of ‘Lord of the Rings’ and ‘Planet of the Apes’ alum Andy Serkis being hired to direct the sequel to 2018’s ‘Venom’ for Sony, beating out ‘Bumblebee’s Travis Knight and ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ Rupert Wyatt.
The actor and motion capture star, turned director will sit in the top chair for the fourth time, following ‘Breathe’ (2017), ‘The Ruins of Empire’ (TV Movie) 2018, and most recently ‘Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle’ (2018), although the formerly titled ‘Mowgli’ will be one Serkis will want to move on from following its years in distribution hell, after Warner Bros shelved and dropped the project, which was eventually picked up by Netflix.
So why have Sony opted for the king of motion capture to direct the sequel to their $855M hit?
Well, although making the mega money it did, the film was a critical flop (29% on Rotten Tomatoes, and 35% on Metacritic) with the like of The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw stating the film was ‘poisoned will dullness’, with many calling out the ‘uninspired’ direction of Ruben Fleischer (‘Zombieland’). Sony will surely hope Serkis’ vast experience in and around the action genre with the likes of the Planet of the Apes trilogy, ‘Lord of the Rings’, ‘The Hobbit’, and of course most recently, ‘Black Panther’, will deliver the usually unlikely scenario of a sequel being received better than a franchise’s first offering.
Sony may also look to Serkis to work out a way of having the film’s star, Tom Hardy perform the role of Venom in motion capture, rather than have the famous Spider-Man villain be made entirely of what could be described as the wobbly CGI of the first film.
Serkis will also be tasked with introducing another of Spidey’s famed nemesis’ into Sony’s spin off universe, in the shape of Woody Harrelson’s Cletus Kasady (aka Carnage), who was introduced in Fleischer’s film with the most egregiously on the nose post credit sting any superhero movie has seen, while there is still no doubt of course that Sony still hold a glimmer of hope of getting Tom Holland’s MCU Spider-Man (fresh off the character’s first billion dollar haul) to appear in one of their spin-offs. However, that would all now seem to hinge on whether the man who has played some of Cinema’s most famous creatures can match up the first films monetary tally with the critical acclaim that Sony crave.
‘Venom 2’ is slated for release October 2020.