Venom still has his fangs firmly in the international box office.
Likely to remain the top film worldwide for a second week, Spider-Man’s iconic enemy is proving a major hit with fans.
Hopes were high before release and the filmmakers clearly already had an eye on what would come next.
With the dramatic final scenes and then a shock reveal in the end credits, director Ruben Fleischer set up not one but two future symbiote storylines.
Fans have already noted that the new co-operative relationship between Eddie Brock and Venom directly sets up the classic Lethal Defender story arc from the source comic books and Fleischer previously acknowldeged it had been a source of inspiration when he was creating the first movie.
Then a stunning mid-credits scene revealed Woody Harrelson as the popular character Cletus Kasady.
Fans know he is te most famous hots for teh symbiote Carnage and the point was driven home by Cletus’ line to Eddie” There will be carnage.”
Hardly very subtle, but then this is a movie where the main character happily bites off heads.
The charming Kasady is a disturbed and psychotic seril killer which provides the perfect counterpoint to Venom’s new family friendly incarnation who only bites the heads off really, really bad guys.
The new movie showed four symbiotes brought to Earth. One died in Carlton Drake’s lab and the leader, Riot, took over Drake’s body before being blown up in the Life Foundation’s rocket.
There is currently one unaccounted for, which is expected to be Carnage.
However, Venom itself, also briefly shared a different body, which is a major nod to another comicbook storyline.
In the film, Eddie’s ex-girlfriend Anne Weyling briefly bonds with Venom to become She-Venom, and this mirrors the storylines from 1995’s Venom: Sinner Takes all comics.
In both the movie and the comics Anne is horrified that she killed people while merged with Venom, but the big screen incarnation later also confesses that she enjoyed the sensation of power. Venom also says more than once how much he likes Anne.
Surely another appearance from She-Venom is coming in the sequel?
VENOM IS OUT NOW.
