Always the busy man, Andy Serkis takes on projects from all over the cinematic landscape, but he’s rooted himself firmly in the hearts of several comic book movie franchises.
The filmmaker recently directed Venom: Let There Be Carnage, where he took over for the original director Ruben Fleischer, but is handing over the reigns himself for Venom 3 to screenwriter Kelly Marcel.
In a new interview with The Playlist’s The Rogue Ones podcast, Serkis says that not returning for the third film is more to do with scheduling than anything else and that he enjoyed the experience on Let There Be Carnage, but it wasn’t for him to stay with the franchise.
“I felt like I was the custodian of Venom at a really interesting time, and I really loved my time on it,” says Serkis. “But, yeah, the other projects that I’d already sort of had lined up – I had to get back to them because they take so long to bring into the world.”
Serkis isn’t completely done with superheroes, though, as he recently starred in The Batman as Alfred Pennyworth. When asked about returning for the sequel, Serkis responded:
“That’s difficult to answer; whatever happens, Matt Reeves is a genius storyteller, and he always goes for the emotional heart of a story, and that was what I was so proud of was here was a relationship between Bruce and Alfred.
He adds, “That felt kind of emotionally powerful and connected and had so many undercurrents. To get to play that with Rob [Pattinson] – he’s such a good actor. So, I just hope there’s more of that. Plus, maybe [Alfred] not getting injured so much next time.”
Serkis can currently be seen in Star Wars: Andor, streaming now on Disney+.
