Among the many effects of the COVID-19 pandemic—the deaths, the economic disruption, the sheer penned-in malaise of it all—its effects on the “Movies in which Spider-Man characters do not, in fact, meet Spider-Man” industry ranks somewhere down near its impact on McDonald’s decision to stop serving All-Day Breakfast. (Which is to say, depressingly relevant to our lives, while not actually being in any way, shape, or form actually important.) First, we were denied the release of Jared Leto’s Morbius—and please consider this your regular reminder that, bizarrely, the Jared Leto superhero vampire movie is still lurking somewhere in our collective futures—and now there’s confirmation from Deadline that Venom sequel Let There Be Carnage has been once again delayed.
Movie delays have, of course, simply become part of the fabric of the entertainment industry over the last year, but it is a bit strange to see a big superhero blockbuster depart a June date, given that, hypothetically, America’s vaccination efforts should be pretty far along at that point. And, in fact, Venom 2 doesn’t appear to be fleeing from COVID, but from Corvettes, ducking out of the way of Universal’s F9, which recently moved to the plum June 25th spot after vacating Memorial Day. Venom might be both tough and sexy, but even his symbiotic mumbling can’t stand up to a year’s worth of deferred Fast And Furious fans finally getting to see the big cars go vrrrrrrmmmm.
Venom 2 stars Tom Hardy, still talking to himself in a pair of somehow equally improbable accents; it’ll also add Woody Harrelson to the mix, building off of his after-credits scene from the moderately successful 2018 original.