It’s Serkis who has won the job in the end, which is Venom was a hit with audiences, making $856 million, but not so popular with critics. Still, its previous box-office and likely increased budget make this the biggest directing job of Serkis’ career so far.
Although Serkis is an absolute master of motion-capture, he’s only directed two feature films so far, as well as performing second unit duties on other movies he’s appeared in, and consulting on mo-cap through his Imaginarium company. His filmography suggests he’ll have something to offer Venom 2 in a few key areas, but might be found lacking in others.
Breathe
Andy Serkis made his directorial debut in 2017 with Venom 2, then Breathe doesn't give us a full picture as it doesn't utilize Serkis' best talents, but it does hint at his approach to story.
Unfortunately, that's not a great sign. The direction in Breathe is fine, but doesn't particularly stand out, and he takes a very basic approach to the real-life tale he's telling, rather than doing anything to enhance the script he's been given. That in turn suggests he's going to need a good script to work with for Venom 2, which is once again being written by Kelly Marcel. It's worth ing, too, that Breathe was Serkis' first movie as a director, and with more experience under his belt he should be able to do better things with Venom 2.
Mowgli: Legend Of The Jungle
Andy Serkis' second movie as a director was originally supposed to be his first, with Mowgli was eventually released in 2018, but not before moving from Warner Bros. to Netflix, with reports that WB was avoiding a box-office bomb. Again, there's an issue with the story here, which strives for a much darker tale than Disney's but can't quite find the right balance.
Still, in of Serkis' work, this is mostly about the visual effects. Venom 2: that he will be looking to use more CGI and motion-capture, which should work a lot better with a character like Venom than it does animals.
The Hobbit
Andy Serkis returned to the role as Gollum for the first movie in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings-esque epic and such a focus from Jackson on working with a higher frame rate. As second unit director, Serkis helped shoot a lot of supplementary material, but was involved in the process throughout, including shooting the sequence where the dwarves clear the plates away in Bilbo's hobbit hole.
Working on introduction of Carnage in Venom 2.
The Imaginarium
After his groundbreaking work as Gollum in Lord of the Rings, Serkis continued to pursue his ion for motion-capture technology, eventually setting up The Imaginarium in 2011 alongside producer Robert Cavendish. The purpose of The Imaginarium was to serve as a performance capture studio and training center, whereby Serkis would be both shooting his own films and further developing the existing technology, while also teaching actors how to become more emotionally invested in digitally-created roles.
The Imaginarium has since provided motion-capture for a number of major blockbusters, including Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
It's very likely that The Imaginarium will be involved with Venom 2.
