Venom: Let There Be Carnage release date moves again – but this time it's good news

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Did Shang-Chi's performance help?

A screenshot of supervillain Carnage in the upcoming Sony movie Venom: Let There Be Canage
(Image credit: Sony Pictures)

Sony has moved the release date of Venom: Let There Be Carnage to October 1, in what has to be considered a major win for theaters and fans of dubious '90s comic book villains. 

The Venom sequel, starring Tom Hardy and Woody Harrelson and directed by Andy Serkis, is launching in less than a month. That puts it just one week ahead of No Time To Die's US release date of October 8, resulting in a competitive few weekends for blockbusters.

Here's the confirmation from Sony on the new release date:

After a year of very few big new movies in the cinema, then, we're about to get a whole lot of them at once. The highly anticipated adaptation of Dune also releases on October 22.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage is an extremely silly-looking film. As Eddie Brock (Hardy) adjusts to life with an alien symbiote bonded to him, a similarly powered foe named Carnage joins the fray. His alter ego is serial killer Cletus Kasady – basically Woody Harrelson in a silly wig. 

We can't wait to watch this nonsense. 

Analysis: did Shang-Chi's performance help? 

With $127.6 million in box office takings after one weekend, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings feels like it might've been a factor, here. Venom 2's release was originally set for mid-September – itself delayed by almost a year due to the pandemic. 

Then, Sony moved the movie again to an October 15 release date, according to reports, suggesting it was going to be stuck in a holding pattern for some time. 

Those results for the latest MCU movie, though, show that people will go to the cinemas for the right movie – even with delta cases an ongoing concern in the United States.

Venom is only releasing in theaters, with no streaming service release planned as it stands. This probably bodes well for Spider-Man: No Way Home's December 17 release date – a further delay to one would likely have affected the other. 

Samuel Roberts
Samuel Roberts

Samuel is a PR Manager at game developer Frontier. Formerly TechRadar's Senior Entertainment Editor, he's an expert in Marvel, Star Wars, Netflix shows and general streaming stuff. Before his stint at TechRadar, he spent six years at PC Gamer. Samuel is also the co-host of the popular Back Page podcast, in which he details the trials and tribulations of being a games magazine editor – and attempts to justify his impulsive eBay games buying binges.