Venom 2: Will Tom Hardy return to play Eddie Brock aka Venom in the sequel?

Venom may not have been a critical success, but it was a box office smash. Starring Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, and Riz Ahmed, the Sony vehicle took a worldwide gross of £671 million ($855m). The anti-hero movie held the biggest opening for any October, as well as the second highest gross for any autumnal weekend.

Will Tom Hardy return to Venom 2?

Though it was never really in doubt, nothing had been confirmed until recently.

Venom producer Amy Pascal revealed to American ticketing site Fandango that Tom Hardy will return to play Eddie Brock, aka Venom.

She said: “I can say that Tom Hardy will be back, magnificently playing that character as no one else can.

“When you think of Venom, you’ll never be able to think of anyone but Tom Hardy sitting in that bathtub of lobsters.

“And once you saw Tom Hardy do this character, that’s all you needed to know.

Despite the positive words from Pascal, the sequel has an uphill battle with critics.

The first Venom movie holds a disappointing 29 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

On Metacritic, which scores movies by a weighted average, Venom has a rating of 35.

However, Pascal teased something which may bring Venom up in critics’ esteem. [hyperlink to spider-man cameo story]

The mid-credits scene in Venom all but guaranteed a Venom sequel starring Woody Harrelson as the villain.

Picking up not long after the end of the feature-length flick, Eddie is back working as an investigative journalist.

Still housing the symbiote inside of him, audiences see Brock travelling to San Quentin prison.

Brock has been given the chance to interview a notorious killer, and he expresses his hope that the interview could lead to finding more bodies.

The murderer he’s there to meet is Cletus Kasady aka Carnage, played by Woody Harrelson who confirmed his inclusion in the sequel to Collider long before Venom’s release.

After some conversation between Brock and Kasady, Kasady closes the mid-credits scene with an ominous foreshadowing.

“When I get out of here,” he says, “and I will, there’s gonna be carnage.”

Venom 2 will likely be in cinemas sometime in 2020.