Andy Serkis Talks About Why He Refused To Return As Director For Sony’s Venom 3

Sony’s films based on Spider-Man and related properties have been struggling in front of the critics but that has not stopped them from spawning a commercially successful Venom franchise starring Tom Hardy in the titular role of the Marvel Comics anti-hero.

The first Venom movie was directed by Ruben Fleischer and despite being thrashed by critics the film was loved by fans and did so well at the box office that a sequel for it was immediately given the green light.

After the success of the first movie, Andy Serkis hopped on as director for the second film. Although Andy Serkis is prominently known as an actor for his performances as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings films and most recently as Alfred in the Matt Reeves Batman film, he does have directorial experience under his belt too.

Andy’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage was even more successful than the first one and it was clear that the series was going to be turning into a trilogy. Unfortunately,  Andy refused to return for directing the unnamed third Venom film and the job was given to Kelly Marcell.

In a recent interview with SlashFilm, Andy revealed his reason for not taking the job in the following words:

“Look, I had a ball doing [Venom: Let There Be Carnage]. Tom Hardy is such a good friend of mine, and I felt very proud of the work, and we had such fun doing it. To be the custodian of that franchise for a little while was great. I’ve got so many projects that I was just about to [work on], like ‘Animal Farm’ for instance. We were just about to go into production with that, and then we delayed as ‘Venom’ came up. I really have to be very on top of the ones that I’ve been building to do for such a long time. But I’m really delighted that Kelly’s doing that. She’s so in control of that material with Tom. The pair of them are such a great team to work with. I’m really excited to see what they’re going to come up with.”

Venom 3 is currently in the developmental phase and does not have a release date or even a title at this point.