‘Venom’ Co-writer/producer Kelly Marcel to Direct ‘Venom 3’

Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock and Venom in 2021's 'Venom: Let There Be Carnage.'

The director’s chair for the ‘Venom’ movies, far from being the usual folding option, must be on some sort of violent swivel. How else to explain the constant change in filmmaker behind the first two, and now third movie in the franchise?

This latest change does at least represent some stability behind the camera though, as Deadline reports that Kelly Marcel, who has been a writer and producer on both previous films, is now on board to direct the third for Sony’s expanding Marvel-based movie universe.

Launching in 2018 with the first movie, ‘Venom’ sees Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock, a down-on-his luck investigative journalist struggling to keep his career afloat and hang on to his crumbling social life.

His world is already falling apart before he’s accidentally infected with an alien symbiote which takes over his body and causes him to become a violent creature that is only too happy to eat people.

Eddie eventually forges an unlikely partnership with the creature that shares his body, and they end up fighting evil (and occasionally, yes, still eating people) together.

Though the original ‘Venom’, directed by ‘Zombieland’s Ruben Fleischer, scored some awful reviews, it was a big box office hit, earning more than $850 million dollars.

So of course, Sony commissioned a sequel, which saw Marcel and Hardy working together to write the script (they’d taken over from previous writers Jeff Pinkner and Scott Rosenberg on the first movie, sharing credit that time).

(L to R) Director Andy Serkis and Tom Hardy on the set of 2021's 'Venom: Let There Be Carnage.'

2021’s ‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage’ saw actor-turned-director Andy Serkis taking over the director’s chair, with Eddie and Venom facing off against violent, psychopathic serial killer Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson), who merges with another symbiote and becomes the terrifying monster known as Carnage.

It was another blend of less-than-enthusiastic reviews but still healthy box office, ending up with a little over $500 million.

And the post-credits scene of ‘Let There Be Carnage’ sees Eddie and Venom being drawn in the MCU, where he identifies Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, though the end of ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ sees the pair sent back to their own dimension, leaving behind a tiny fragment of the symbiote to cause chaos for the main Marvel heroes (at least, we figure that’s the plan).

Despite her experience with the ‘Venom’ movies, and her long working partnership with Hardy, with whom she started out in a theatre group, Marcel would seem to be an unlikely choice to direct the next one.

She hasn’t directed a movie before, and the effects-heavy workload of a superhero film can be daunting. Still, Marcel has plenty of experience on films, including writing the likes of ‘Saving Mr. Banks’, the first ‘Fifty Shades Of Grey’ and snagging a Story By credit on Disney’s ‘Cruella’.

More recently, she has been busy as showrunner on Apple TV+ series ‘The Changeling’, which should be on screens this year.

Hardy teased that the third ‘Venom’ script was in progress via Instagram back in June, and we knew that Sony wanted to push ahead with the franchise. So now Marcel will be carrying even more responsibility.

Sony has yet to confirm a release date for the new movie, but we can’t see it being ready before 2024.

Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock and Venom in 2018's 'Venom.'