Andy Serkis isn’t just a good actor and filmmaker; he’s essentially a savvy businessman who saw an opportunity. After being at the forefront of motion capture technology on his Gollum role in “The Lord Of The Rings” and watching Peter Jackson’s WETA making a mint, he founded the similar The Imaginarium, his own production company and studio in London specializing in digital performance-capture technology that has provided support for “Avengers” movies, “Star Wars” movies, the ‘Planet Of The Apes’ series (which he starred in) and more. Serkis took his skill and turned it into his own veritable, flourishing cottage industry.
Simultaneously, Serkis directing career has taken off too and his motion-capture movie “Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle,” was a big tentpole for Warner Bros. before it got sold off to Netflix (not for lack of quality, “The Jungle Book” arrived first and WB cut their losses). All of this makes Serkis a pretty perfect candidate to direct a lot of VFX-heavy movies. So, perhaps it’s not a huge surprise he’s now one of the filmmakers in line to direct “Venom 2,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. Update: Variety says “Bumblebee” director Travis Knight and Rupert Wyatt (“Rise of the Planet of the Apes“) have taken meetings for the gig too.
THR says Serkis is “in the mix” and being eyed as the potential director for the film that would once again star Tom Hardy as the symbiote anti-hero superhero. Sony wants to capitalize on the rare superhero movie that was roasted by critics, but still managed to make $856 million worldwide.
To no one’s surprise, original director Ruben Fleischer (“Zombieland”), won’t be returning and that’s not a shocker considering how mediocre the movie was and how critics—if they praised it for anything at all—praised Hardy’s performance, but generally dragged the messy and choppy film. Fleischer, it was said, had a hard time controlling Tom Hardy, who was rumored to be a bit of force of nature with ideas and tangents and didn’t quite see eye to eye with the filmmaker on tone (which the movie reveals, in its wild shifts).
As THR notes, “Venom 2,” written by Kelly Marcel, will be effects-heavy and “mix DG and performance capture technology.” The last film featured a post-credits cameo by Woody Harrelson as chief Venom villain Cletus Kasady, aka Carnage, so presumably, the sequel, currently set for fall 2020, will pick up on that thread.