Why Venom 2 Release Date Always Needed to Be Delayed

Venom: Let There Be Carnage director Andy Serkis explains why the studio delayed the release date. The sequel was delayed an entire year due to the pandemic, slotted for September 14th, 2021, but was bumped again to October 1st, 2021, because of recent surges. Now, Venom: Let There Be Carnage is finally in theaters and has already broken post-pandemic box office records, having the biggest opening weekend since 2019, pulling in $90.1 million so far.

Andy Serkis, mainly known for his acting and mo-cap work in films like The Lord of the Rings and the recent Planet of the Apes trilogy, took on directing duties from Ruben Fleischer for the Venom sequel. Serkis began his directing career with the 2017 Andrew Garfield-led Breathe and followed that with a darker adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book” with 2018’s Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle, which premiered on Netflix. Serkis has said that his next film will be an adaptation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, although it’s unclear if he’ll adapt it with mo-cap or a hybrid style of live-action/animation.

In an interview with the Reelblend Podcast, Serkis said that Venom: Let There Be Carnage always needed to be delayed, as the original 2020 release date was “nigh on impossible.” The director explained that they were working on the film up to the last minute, with the post-credits sequence not even complete when the film was screened early for critics. Ultimately, the delays bought Serkis and his team more time to refine the movie, fulfill their visual ambition, and make the film they intended. Here’s what Serkis had to say:

 “I’ll be truthful. We finished the last visual effects shot last week. We’ve just kept refining, kept refining… It would’ve been a much poorer movie visually because there was so much to do. You know, the ambition for it was huge, and the time was not really long enough to really execute it.”

Serkis went on to explain that the visual effects work was at the forefront of completing the film, saying that the teams working on them were “sprawling across the planet and the animators and the CG artists and the visual effects supervisor, producers, all in different places in the world” which made it challenging to oversee.  The director noted that Covid was “difficult” and “a nightmare” for everyone but said it ultimately benefited their work on the film. “Certainly, the silver lining for this movie was that we had more time to work on it, that’s just a fact.” Serkis also said that it wasn’t easy to bring Venom and Carnage to life, with the most significant challenge being how to make them “believable,” which was the big focus for the CGI team.

October seems to be the month that most of the long-delayed films from the past year are finally making their debut, Venom: Let There Be Carnage being one of them. In addition, No Time To Die, Halloween Kills, and Dune will all be released this month, which will bring nearly all the Covid-19-delayed films to their final stage and open the door for new releases that are on a regular schedule. While some films may like an extra bit of time to refine and tweak, it appears that those delays may be a thing of the past as Hollywood gets back to business and back on schedule.

Source: Reelblend Podcast

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