Venom: Let There Be Carnage Villain Was Inspired By A Scorpion

Venom: Let There Be Carnage's terrifying symbiote villain Carnage may look completely otherworldly, but the creature was actually inspired by a real-world animal.

The sequel to 2018's Venom, which is now on theatrical release, sees serial killer Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson) ingest a part of symbiote Venom after biting Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy), leading his body to become entwined with that of chaos-causing symbiote Carnage.

Despite both Venom and Carnage being symbiotes, their design is quite different and Venom 2's VFX supervisor Sheena Duggal has told Variety that she modelled Carnage's tentacles on vines and his movement and combat style on that of a scorpion, having looked at how animals use weapons in nature.

Related: Venom 3 – everything you need to know

"The way a scorpion moves its tail behind its head and moves it forward in this threatening way, I thought, 'Let's do that with Carnage'," she said, revealing that she put a lot of emphasis on how the character would impale people and how he would create different weapons using his tentacles.

No wonder Carnage looks so horrifying.

Duggal added that she also took a lot of inspiration from fans of the Marvel comics, saying that she spent a lot of time on social media and forums trying to work out what fans would like to see from Carnage.

"I wanted to see what they wanted from this character and what behavior and look was important to them," she said. "We wanted fans to be very happy with this."

Related: Spider-Man's Tom Holland addresses Venom crossover possibility

If box office performance is anything to go by, fans are indeed happy, as the movie has been a huge success in financial terms, making around $25-30 million more than expected over its opening weekend in the US.

The movie also features a major surprise during the credits, with director Andy Serkis recently revealing that the mid-credits scene was "100 percent in flux" for a long time.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage is now playing in US cinemas. It will be released in the UK on October 15.

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Reporter & Sub-Editor, Digital Spy Susannah is a freelance writer and sub-editor, specialising in the entertainment industry. She graduated in 2014, with a BA in English and American Literature and Creative Writing, and an MA in Creative Producing. She’s been writing for Digital Spy ever since, after first getting involved through work experience, and has written hundreds of stories for the site on a range of topics, from The Sims to Doctor Who. Susannah has also written for Reveal Magazine. Her special interests are soaps (her Mastermind subject would be 2000s Coronation Street), Marvel and Star Wars. She can also quote far too many lines from Friends and Brooklyn Nine-Nine.