A sequel to Tom Hardy’s Venom movie is officially in development.
Released last October (18), the flick featured the British actor as Eddie Brock, an investigative journalist who becomes the host of an alien symbiote, Venom, that imbues him with super-human abilities.
Despite critics slating the script, Hardy won praise for his performance, and Venom was an unexpected box office success, garnering over $855 million worldwide and becoming the sixth highest-grossing film of 2018.
Now, according to editors at Variety, producers at Sony Pictures have signed up Hardy to reprise his role and Kelly Marcel to work on the screenplay for the follow-up.
Marcel co-wrote the script for the first film alongside Jeff Pinkner and Scott Rosenberg, basing the story off the Marvel Comics created by Todd McFarlane and David Michelinie. It was also reported that Marcel will act as executive producer on the sequel.
Previously, she penned the screenplays of films such as Saving Mr. Banks and Fifty Shades of Grey, and is currently writing Cruella, a live-action prequel feature film following a young Cruella de Vil, which is set to feature Emma Stone in the lead role.
While Ruben Fleischer helmed the first Venom movie, it is unclear if he will return for the sequel. He has a number of projects lined up, and is making Zombieland 2 at present. He is in the pre-production stages of Jekyll, set to feature Captain America’s Chris Evans, too, and is attached to make comedy The Regional Office Is Under Attack.
Executives from Sony Pictures have declined to comment on the new Venom project. However, it is anticipated that Hardy will be joined again by key characters from the original film, such as Michelle Williams, who played Anne Weying, and Woody Harrelson in the role of Cletus Kasady.
