Venom 2 to be released 2 weeks early

'Venom: Let There Be Carnage' will be released two weeks earlier than expected.

The upcoming sequel was initially set to hit the big screen on October 15, but Sony bosses have reportedly decided to bump the release forward to October 1 following the recent success of Marvel's record-breaking box office debut of 'Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,' according to Deadline.

The follow-up to the 2018 blockbuster sees Tom Hardy reprise his role as Venom/ Eddie Brock opposite Woody Harrelson as supervillain Carnage.

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".

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."