Tom Hardy and Woody Harrelson’s CGI Smackdown

It’s Tom Hardy vs. Woody Harrelson in the new official trailer for “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” the latest directorial feature from motion capture genius Andy Serkis. A sequel to the critically-panned but hugely successful 2018 comic book tentpole “Venom,” which earned over $800 million at the worldwide box office, “Let There Be Carnage” also marks the return of Michelle Williams to the franchise and the introduction of “Moonlight” Oscar nominee Naomie Harris as Shriek, the love interest for Carnage.

As revealed last month, Hardy is getting the first “story by” credit of his career on the “Venom” sequel after “spending months” brainstorming the narrative for “Let There Be Carnage” with screenwriter Kelly Marcel. “Venom: Let There Be Carnage.”

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“This is new for him, to get credit,” Marcel told Empire Magazine. “but it’s not new for him to be this involved. He’s absolutely 100 percent committed to everything that he does. He’s married to Venom. He loves this character. He’s very involved in what he thinks should happen.”

As reported by Empire: “While Marcel gets the full screenplay credit, her script sprang from lengthy conversations with Hardy where they hashed out how exactly Venom and chaotic red symbiote Carnage (which attaches itself to Woody Harrelson’s serial killer Cletus Kasady) will collide on screen. ‘He doesn’t get a pen and write,’ explains Marcel of Hardy’s process. ‘We spent months breaking the story together on FaceTime, riffing on ideas, seeing what worked, seeing what didn’t. Then I took everything we spoke about and holed up somewhere for three months quietly, knocking out a script.’”

The “Venom” sequel finds Serkis in the director’s chair for his fourth feature, with his catalog of films including “Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle” from 2018 and the romance “Breathe” from 2017. Serkis is a motion capture legend, thanks to his work on “The Lord of the Rings,” “King Kong,” and “Planet of the Apes.” Criticisms were mainly flung at the original “Venom” for its CGI — which requires Tom Hardy to be blended with the technology — so it stands to reason that Serkis will more fluidly integrate motion capture graphics into real-world settings than the first film did.

“Venom: Let There Be Carnage” is currently set to be released on September 24. Watch the new trailer from Sony in the video below.

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