As many people feared, it appears studios might be concerned about the box office and the rise in COVID cases, leading to the upcoming fall film slate getting shifted around. While we’re not exactly there yet, perhaps we’re seeing the first domino fall as Sony is pushing the release date of its highly anticipated “Venom: Let There Be Carnage.”
READ MORE: Tom Hardy’s Passion For ‘Venom’ Earned Him A Writing Credit On ‘Let There Be Carnage’
According to Variety, Sony has decided the best course of action is to take “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” from its September 24 release date and delay it until October 15. This is clearly a result of recent trends with COVID cases rising worldwide and slower vaccination rates than people have been hoping for. Also, we’re seeing some cities, like New York City, go back to more stringent restrictions, including vaccine mandates for indoor entertainment. All that to say, Sony is concerned about the box office of “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” and without the added benefit of a Disney+ or HBO Max to release the film on streaming, the studio thinks it’s best to push the date to a time when it thinks COVID should be better controlled.
“Venom: Let There Be Carnage” is the sequel to 2018’s massively popular “Spider-Man” spinoff film. Tom Hardy leads the franchise as the title character, an anti-hero that is the host to an extraterrestrial parasitic entity known as Venom, who really just wants to eat people and cause chaos. ‘Carnage’ is directed by Andy Serkis.
But as mentioned at the beginning, while the delay of one blockbuster isn’t enough to freak out everyone in the industry who were all banking on the economic recovery of cinemas, this could end up being the first film to start a new trend of delays, much in the same way we saw in 2020, with studios following the lead of others. That said, there is a bit of optimism that a mass delay could be mitigated with folks like Warner Bros. already committing to releasing films on HBO Max and in theaters, making a delay seem a bit useless. The same could be said about Disney, as the studio might be willing to allow big releases like “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” to move to a hybrid theatrical/streaming release instead of delaying. But Sony (and other studios) don’t have the same confidence that a streaming release is possible and/or beneficial.
Needless to say, there’s going to be a lot of talk about the fall release date schedule in the days to come. “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” is now set for release on October 15.