How many cinematic universes can you cram into a single movie? Venom: Let There Be Carnage is set in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, and maybe also crosses over into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And now it looks like it sort of connects to The Matrix Resurrections too?

The key phrase here is “sort of,” but there is a connection, albeit one you wouldn’t notice on first viewing. According to Venom 2 location manager Christopher Kusiak, the film was shooting in San Francisco around the same time that the highly anticipated Matrix sequel was filming around some of the same locations. As a result, Kusiak told ScreenRant, you can occasionally see some of The Matrix’s equipment in the background of Venom’s shots.

The main example is in scenes where you can see helicopters while police are pursuing Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock and Woody Harrelson’s Cletus Kasady. While the helicopters are nicely incorporated into the film — it seems like they’re police choppers out on a manhunt for symbiotes — they were actually helicopters from unspecified scenes in The Matrix Resurrections. 

"The helicopters were actually on the Matrix movie,” Kusiak said. “The Matrix was filming at the same time so we were catching part of their activity on camera."

Kusiak also revealed that The Matrix was filming so much stuff in so many locations that Venom lost some of their planned driving shots because “Matrix controlled all of downtown.” At least one stunt had to be relocated because of competition with The Matrix for key spots as well. But you wouldn’t know any of that from Let There Be Carnage — and they did incorporate those helicopters in their own movie. Talk about making cinematic lemons out of lemonade.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage is in theaters now. The Matrix Resurrections premieres in theaters and on HBO Max on December 22, 2021.

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