Venom 2 delayed

'Venom 2' has been pushed back to next year.

The upcoming sequel - which has been officially titled 'Venom: Let There Be Carnage' - had been due to hit cinemas on 2 October this year but due to the coronavirus pandemic, Sony Pictures have now announced the follow-up to the 2018 blockbuster will now be released on 25 June 2021.

The new release date for the film - which sees Tom Hardy reprise his role as Venom/ Eddie Brock opposite Woody Harrelson as supervillain Carnage - is the slot vacated by 'The Batman', which was announced earlier this week as having moved to a release date of 1 October 2021.

The 'Venom' sequel is directed by Andy Serkis - who took over from Ruben Fleischer - and he teased in February that the movie would be "thrilling", though declined to give any specific details.

He said: "I really can't say too much about it but we're 40 days into shoot and it's really thrilling.

"We've got the magnificent Tom Hardy at the centre of it and we see a deepening of the relationship between he and Venom.

"Obviously there's a nemesis character ... and that's all I can say.

"It's going well and we got a fantastic cast in it."

Cinematographer Robert Richardson had previously confirmed that Harrelson would be starring in the film.

Explaining his motivation for working on the blockbuster, Richardson said: "I watched it again, then they sent me a script and I felt like, yeah, I would say yes anyway to Andy just because I would say yes to Andy, but I also think it's a great ... I think it's unexplored yet, and it's going to explode, and this film, I think, will help it explode, because you have a remarkable central character with Venom, but now you've got Woody Harrelson, who's going to obviously make his own little entrance here, and we'll see what else comes in with the Sony Marvel collaboration."