Having appeared in Doctor Strange and its 2022 sequel Multiverse of Madness, Chiwetel Ejiofor is switching things up when it comes to his Marvel-related roles. According to a new report from Deadline, the actor has joined the cast of Venom 3, and will share the screen with Juno Temple and Tom Hardy in the upcoming third installment.
Hardy, unsurprisingly, will reprise the role of Eddie Brock, the down-on-his-luck reporter who finds himself the witting host of an unruly flesh-hungry symbiote. Ejiofor's character has yet to be revealed.
Like its predecessor, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Venom 3 will be written by Hardy and Kelly Marcel, who will also helm the comic book flick. As it stands, we have no idea as to its plot, though it's worth remembering that the previous entry ended with detective Patrick Mulligan (Stephen Graham) seemingly absorbing the super-sonic powers of Naomie Harris's villain Shriek. There was also that post-credit scene, of course, which saw Eddie and Venom get mysteriously transported to a universe where Tom Holland's Spider-Man exists, and could lead into the upcoming movie.
Outside of the MCU, Ejiofor's works include The Man Who Fell to Earth, The Old Guard, and 12 Years a Slave. Before Venom 3, he'll be seen in sci-fi rom-com The Pod Generation alongside Emilia Clarke.
Venom's second installment, which was released in 2021 and directed by Andy Serkis, earned a respectable $506.9 million at the worldwide box office, so it's no surprise that Sony are continuing the series. When asked about the franchise's future a couple of years ago, Hardy explained to Digital Spy: "These things [usually] come in threes. If there's going to be a new one – and they depend heavily on the success of each individual one, so you can't count on them ever happening again – everyone has got to be as if it was the last one.
"But I think it's really important, if you go into something, thinking that one, two and three are the same... the same story, the same film. So that you don't surprise yourself by being caught out by suddenly having to do a third from nowhere."
While we wait for Venom 3, or whatever it may end up being called, why not check out our roundup of all the upcoming movies being released throughout the rest of 2023 and beyond.
