After some deliberations and meeting with a few different filmmakers, it looks like Sony has come to a decision on who will oversee the big screen clash between Venom and Carnage; yes, Beatsters, the master of CGI himself, Andy Serkis will direct Venom 2, per Variety.

Last year’s Venom, came with low expectations and a whole lot of snark with every trailer released (and The Beat didn’t love it), but behind a captivating Tom Hardy performance, it grossed $855 million worldwide to the surprise of most. Well, almost everyone except for longtime Venom cheerleader Avi Arad, of course. We joke, but it seems like he knew what the people wanted after all!

Ruben Fleischer, the original helmer, can’t return as he’s in the middle of post-production on the Zombieland sequel and so Sony had to get deep into negotiations to determine who would shepherd their “Sony’s Marvel Universe” (the actual name) into its next chapter. Travis Knight, who directed Bumblebee (a movie that rules btw), was up for it, as was Rupert Wyatt, who was attached to Fox’s long-dead Gambit feature for some time. But in the end, Sony landed on Serkis whose highest profile directorial work was the Netflix release Mowgli, the other Jungle Book movie, as well as acting as a second unit director with Peter Jackson on the Hobbit films.

Hardy will be returning to the lead role, to face off this time against, presumably, Woody Harrelson‘s Cletus Kasady/Carnage…which hopefully they’ll figure out the hair this time at least.

Venom 2 will presumably see release on October 2020, which Sony has placed an untitled Marvel film at, and if that pans out, it would make the necessity of beginning production without Fleischer a little more clear.

Next up for Sony though: Morbius starring Jared Leto and Matt Smith, which releases next July and furthers their plan for this vaguely adjunct Spider-Man universe. If they keep making money, the likelihood that Tom Holland pops up in one of these increases exponentially.

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