It was reported late last year that Woody Harrelson was in talks to join the cast of Sony's Venom movie. However, it wasn't clear which part he was in talks for. Production for the movie wrapped in late January after Tom Hardy revealed the news on social media, but the movie will have to undergo reshoots soon as well as add some of the motion capture work by Hardy. Now, a new report has surfaced, claiming that Woody Harrelson is actually playing Carnage in Venom.
This is still very much a rumor at this point, and Carnage has been rumored since the Venom movie was announced. Many fans thought that Riz Ahmed was playing the character, but it was later revealed that he's playing Doctor Carlton Drake of the Life Foundation. Hopes of Cletus Kasady slowly begin to fade away and those hopes were all but crushed when the teaser trailer was revealed and didn't even show the symbiote once. Sources close to the project now claim that Woody Harrelson has joined the cast officially and that he will be portraying Carnage.
There have been conflicting reports about the symbiotes in the Venom movie over the last handful of months. One report declared that Eddie Brock wouldn't get the full symbiote treatment until the very end of the movie, which Tom Hardy has since disputed. The other reports surrounding Carnage were pretty much the same, noting that the character will be revealed in a post-credit scene where Eddie Brock is in jail and meets Cletus Kasady, which would follow the comics. If this is true, it would seem that Sony is intending to make a sequel featuring Woody Harrelson has Carnage.
In other Venom news, a leaked piece of promotional material has given us our first look at the symbiote in the movie. The symbiote has shown up on the bottle of Brisk Iced Tea in a new flavor that is promoting the movie. The character looks pretty much like we've expected, but not exactly where we expected to see him. This news paired with the reports of Woody Harrelson joining the cast are really starting to turn the marketing for Venom on its head. Fans have been pretty skeptical from the conflicting reports and the disappointing teaser trailer, so it's nice to see some positive news.
Sony's Venom movie hits theaters on October 5th, which is coming up pretty fast. It's expected that reshoots will happen in the near future, more than likely when Tom Hardy is done shooting Fonzo. Since the story of Venom is based off of the Lethal Protector comic series, we could end up seeing numerous symbiotes on the big screen, which would be pretty awesome and something that fans have been waiting a long time to see. You can check out the original report about Woody Harrelson joining the cast of Venom as Carnage over at Bleeding Cool.