Venom 2 Trailer 2 Breakdown: 16 Story Details & Secrets You Missed

Sony’s new Venom: Let There Be Carnage trailer unleashes serial killer Cletus Kasady as the classic Marvel villain Carnage. Sony’s shared universe of Spider-Man spinoff films is continuing to expand, with Tom Hardy’s Venom standing center-stage. The first Venom movie grossed over $850 million in the global box office, and the studio wasted no time on signing off on a sequel. This time, though, the tongue-slavering symbiote is up against an even more terrible force – Woody Harrelson’s Cletus Kasady, the serial killer who becomes the symbiotic mass murderer Carnage.

In the comics, Carnage is considered one of the most dangerous supervillains of all, simply because he has no other goal than to spill blood – and he enjoys doing it. He’s associated with one of the darkest Spider-Man stories of all time, “Maximum Carnage,” which had a breathtakingly simple concept; Carnage was unleashed on New York City, with only Spider-Man and a handful of allies standing in his way. The story’s heart was a moral quandary; should Spider-Man kill Carnage, an irredeemable villain whose bloodlust could never be sated? And if he did so, would he ever regain his faith in humanity? Tom Holland’s Spider-Man may not be in Venom 2, but the prospect of a big-screen “Maximum Carnage” is still exciting to many.

The first trailers for Venom 2 have only given a few glimpses of Woody Harrelson’s Carnage, but now Sony has clearly decided it’s time to give viewers a sense of what they’re in for. It’s time for Venom to go up against the one villain who he should really fear.

16. Kasady Becomes Carnage

The new trailer for Venom: Let There Be Carnage opens with a shot of Cletus Kasady transforming, and it’s accompanied by a disturbing line of dialogue that really does sum up pretty much everything you need to know about his character; “All I ever wanted in this world is carnage.” Serial killer Kasady gets exactly what he always dreamed of when he’s bonded with a symbiote, and he takes on a disturbing dark blood-red hue instead of Venom’s trademark black. This transformation scene takes place in a church, a nice nod to the original “Maximum Carnage” story, where a number of key scenes took place in a similar setting as part of the story’s exploration of good and evil. In the comics, the church was actually the home of Cloak and Dagger, two vigilantes who were injured in a battle against Carnage and his allies. Here, it may well have something to do with Cletus’ backstory.

15. Eddie Struggles To Control Venom

The Venom 2 trailer establishes a difficult status quo for Eddie Brock, revealing the symbiosis between Eddie and Venom is not going well. The fundamental problem is that, as Venom says, he is a predator – a hunter, whose every instinct tells him to feast on his prey. This concept has never really been developed in the comics, but it’s a logical development of Venom’s constant threats to eat people’s brains, and it adds a fun new dynamic to the sequel; Eddie wants to use the symbiote for good, but he still won’t allow it to indulge its own bloodthirsty appetites. This detail also serves to reinforce the threat posed by Carnage, for Cletus Kasady is a killer bonded with a predator just like Venom.

14. Venom As A Lethal Protector

Venom is shown watching over the city, the symbiote eagerly longing to snack on “bad guys.” Venom became San Francisco’s “Lethal Protector” at the end of the first film, a role he occupied for some time in the comics, but amusingly enough he was never shown fulfilling his threat to eat people’s brains. The comics have suggested the Venom symbiote has a biological thirst for phenethylamine – a stimulant that symbiotes apparently need, can’t produce naturally, and must acquire from devouring the human brain (or chocolate). Here, the symbiote really is eager to dine out on human beings, and it is tired of being restrained. The trailer shows a number of shots that seem to show Venom at work defending the city, even one in which he looks as though he’s about to chow down on a human, but presumably he’ll be restrained by Eddie’s mind. Apparently Eddie is keeping him in check by having him bite down on car tires hanging from the roof of his apartment, while threatening he’ll be hauled off into Area 51. It’s unclear whether this is a legitimate threat, or simply something Eddie believes to be real because he’s into conspiracy theories.

13. The Ravencroft Institute

Venom 2 introduces the Ravencroft Institute, Marvel’s version of Arkham Asylum. This played a significant role in classic ’90s Spider-Man comics, which became almost as dark as Batman, with numerous Spider-Man foes consigned to the Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane. More recent comics have revealed Ravencroft’s backstory, establishing that the very ground the Institute is built upon has been cursed for generations. Beneath Ravencroft is a shrine to the dark god of the symbiotes Knull; one of Cletus Kasady’s ancestors was himself influenced by Knull, becoming the New World’s first serial killer and dying on the spot where Ravencroft would one day be founded. It’s been destroyed and rebuilt with remarkable frequency in the comics, and shots in the trailers have shown Carnage burning it down in Venom: Let There Be Carnage as well.

12. An Introduction To Shriek

Carnage won’t be the only villain in Venom 2; Eddie will also find himself going up against another inmate of Ravencroft Asylum, the super-powered sonic manipulator called Shriek. A young woman with a troubled childhood, Shriek became a twisted psychopath and then an associate of Carnage’s while they were both incarcerated in Ravencroft. She was drawn to his bloodthirsty philosophy, and quickly joined him after his breakout, becoming a key player in the events of “Maximum Carnage.” Shriek is a particularly potent threat for Venom, because symbiotes are vulnerable to sonic blasts; in addition, in “Maximum Carnage” she used her powers to bombard the entire city of New York with subtle sonic waves, encouraging citizens to become aggressive and violent, triggering riots. Venom 2 director Andy Serkis has promised Shriek will be complex; “She’s dangerous too,” he observed in one interview, “and I think she has her own sense of fairness and being just, and I think when that line is crossed, then you see a very, very dangerous, dark side to her, and that’s what we wanted to do with the character.” It will be interesting to see how Shriek’s origin story has been rewritten for the Sony film, given in the comics it involves everything from the Darkforce Dimension to a latent mutant gene.

11. Venom Lashes Out At Eddie Brock

Venom’s aggression is getting out of control, and the Venom 2 trailer shows him lashing out at Eddie himself. “You are a loser,” the symbiote snarls after head-butting Eddie repeatedly, a quite remarkable charge given the two bonded in the first film over both being losers. It seems that, absent other symbiotes to compare himself to, Venom has become increasingly assertive and is beginning to look at Eddie with a degree of contempt. The partnership between Eddie and Venom may not last much longer.

10. Eddie Brock Visits Kasady

There seems to be some sort of historic connection between Eddie Brock and Cletus Kasady, with Brock perhaps covering the serial killer back when he worked for the Daily Bugle. Kasady invites Eddie to visit him, with the journalist presumably hoping to get some sort of twisted exclusive from one of the world’s most feared killers. Unfortunately, Kasady appears to have invited Eddie for the purpose of terrorizing him.

There have been previous shots of the Daily Bugle, including of a front-page profile they carried out on Cletus Kasady, but the structure of this new Venom 2 trailer suggests Eddie himself may have been the one who wrote that particular feature. If that is the case, Kasady could well feel Eddie has gotten inside his head; it’s difficult to say whether he resents that, or feels he can bond with Eddie because of this. There could well be an element of both to his twisted logic.

9. The Origin of Carnage

Carnage takes the opportunity to bite Eddie, doing what physical damage he can, but is surprised at the taste of his blood – clearly identifying the symbiote within him. This, it seems, is Venom 2‘s origin for Carnage; a sliver of symbiote was absorbed into Kasady’s body when he bit Eddie, and that symbiote regenerated itself in some way. It’s very different to the comics, where Eddie Brock actually shared a cell with Kasady. When Venom broke Brock out, he inadvertently left a symbiotic “offspring”, which bonded with the killer to become Carnage.

8. Carnage Escapes Ravencroft

As in the comics, Carnage’s slaughter begins when he breaks out of Ravencroft. The jailbreak sees Carnage demonstrate very different powers to Venom, with bullets passing straight through his body and the growth of extra arms; where Venom is a human being bonded with a symbiote, Carnage appears to have transformed into something new, part-human and part-symbiote. “He can turn to mist,” Andy Serkis explained in one interview. “He can turn to all manner of tendrils. He can take different forms. He can weaponize, he can do all of these different things. With all symbiotes, they reflect the person who is their host. So the darkness of Carnage, the playfulness, the wit, the strangeness. Cletus has a real intelligence and… a real sense of humor, and we wanted to reflect that in the symbiote that is linked to him.“

7. Carnage Brutally Kills A Guard

No doubt there will be a lot of brutal deaths in Venom: Let There Be Carnage – but the trailer shows one that is surprisingly unlike Carnage from the comics. Rather than hack or slash a guard to pieces, Carnage’s tongue extrudes down his throat. While this is most likely a gross way of choking the man to death, it may be rather more sinister, because in the comics Carnage has developed the ability to control others, bending them to his will. He does this by planting fragments of his own symbiote within them, and Carnage may well be doing something quite similar here.

6. Carnage Dominates San Francisco

The Venom 2 trailer moves on to a number of dark shots showing Carnage rampaging through New York City, and even going up against Venom himself. Most of these are lacking in context, and serve only to indicate the sheer scale of the chaos Carnage intends to cause. The most interesting in thematic terms is a brief glimpse of Carnage dominating the city of San Francisco like a wrathful god, contrasting perfectly with Venom’s previous role as Lethal Protector – and suggesting Carnage has taken the city. He is under gunfire from a helicopter, but swats it out of the sky with ease.

5. Is Anne Somehow Connected To Carnage?

One disturbing shot in the Venom 2 trailer shows Cletus Kasady looking at a photograph of Anne Weying, Eddie’s ex-wife, played by Michelle Williams. It’s clear Anne has become Carnage’s target, although it’s difficult to say whether the serial killer is targeting her in order to get back at Eddie – or because he has some dark connection with Anne himself. Given Anne is a lawyer, it’s possible she worked for the prosecution against Kasady, and was instrumental in getting him put behind bars. Hopefully Weying will reprise her She-Venom role from the first film.

4. “That Is A Red One!”

The Venom: Let There Be Carnage trailer includes what is clearly the first encounter between Venom and Carnage, with Eddie’s symbiote retreating in shock. “That is a red one,” Venom declares in horror. Symbiote colors don’t really mean anything in the comics, with Carnage’s red simply standing for his bloodlust, but clearly in Sony’s movies the red is significant. It could even mean the process of symbiosis doesn’t work the same way, explaining why Carnage’s powers appear to work differently to Venom’s.

3. Eddie Brock’s New Deal With Venom

Eddie Brock is forced to strike a new deal with Venom in order to get him to fight Carnage – promising he will let Venom eat anyone. While Eddie’s offer is understandable given he’s face-to-face with Carnage, he may well come to regret this promise; Venom enthusiastically agrees, and launches himself into battle. The difficult status quo established by the trailer’s opening shots is broken, and it will be difficult for the two to trust one another now.

2. Shriek Uses Her Powers

Shriek is seen using her powers to shatter a car windscreen. The shot has absolutely no context, meaning it’s difficult to say how this figures into the story, but she does seem to be wearing her Ravencroft uniform. That suggests she’s escaped, perhaps after Carnage burned Ravencroft Institute to the ground. If that is the case, she’s not actually sided with Carnage straight away as in the comics, and may have a more complex role.

1. Anne Weying Is Engaged

Sony’s Venom 2 trailer follows the traditional Marvel format, ending with a humorous moment from the film. It seems his ex-wife Anne Weying has moved on with her life, getting engaged to Dr. Dan Lewis. While Eddie is able to congratulate her, the Venom symbiote isn’t quite so pleased, even lashing out at Dan. “That dude needs some serious couples’ counseling,” Dan observes.

About The Author

Thomas Bacon
(4897 Articles Published)

Tom Bacon is one of Screen Rant’s staff writers, as well as a Peer Mentor for new writers and a member of the Care Team, offering support and a listening ear to members of the Comics group. A lifelong fan of major franchises including Star Wars, Doctor Who, and Marvel, Tom is delighted his childhood is back – and this time it’s cool. You can find him on Twitter @TomABacon.

A graduate of Edge Hill University, Tom remains strongly connected with his alma mater as a volunteer chaplain. He’s heavily involved with his local church, and anyone who checks him out on Twitter will swiftly learn he’s into British politics too.

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