Given his monstrous appearance, vicious nature, and morally-ambiguous stance of protecting the innocent with hardcore violence, it’s unsurprising that Marvel’s Venom has become one of metalheads’ favorite comic book characters. It also doesn’t hurt that the anti-hero shares his name with the founders of black metal and was created by Spawn mastermind and Korn cover artist Todd McFarlane. Now, to promote the upcoming Venom 2: Let There Be Carnage, star Tom Hardy and director Andy Serkis have sat down for a rousing game of ‘Symbiote or Death Metal Band,’ and it turns out that Hardy knows his death metal pretty well!
The basic rule of the game is, the host (IGN’s Francesca Rivera) names either one of the alien symbiotes from Marvel’s Venom universe, who all have very metal monikers like ‘Lasher’ and ‘Riot,’ or a death metal band, and then asks Hardy and Serkis to tell her which one it is. Overall, the director and actor do solidly well, with Hardy shining; he even goes so far as to mention that ‘Carnage’ is the name of both a symbiote and a band.
Of course, things get a little out of hand when the symbiote dragon ‘Grendel’ comes up. Ever the class act, Serkis mentions that Grendel is the villain from the epic poem Beowulf. Hardy, on the other hand, cracks up laughing and bringing up the “colonic bridge.” Hey, the dude was brilliant in The Revenant, okay?
Check out the video below:
Venom 2: Let There Be Carnage comes out this Friday, October 1st, only in theaters. So if you’re looking for a movie to break your popcorn cherry post-COVID, this one might be loud and crazy enough for that.
Check out the first trailer and poster below:
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Words by Chris Krovatin
