Ruben Fleischer helmed the 2018 movie but is not returning. Serkis flew to Los Angeles for meetings set by Sony brass earlier this week. He is one of several filmmakers in the mix, sources say, as Sony carefully weighs who will direct the follow-up to a movie that made $856 million at the global box office.

Sony wants the project before cameras in November.

Serkis is known for his pioneering motion capture and performance capture acting work and rose to fame by portraying Gollum in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy from 2002 to 2004. He reteamed with Jackson for The Hobbit trilogy (2012-14), where he got experience with second unit directing, which he'd parlay into his directorial debut, the 2017 drama Breathe. He also helmed last year's non-Disney take on the Rudyard Kipling stories Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle, which ended up on Netflix after being made at Warner Bros. His résumé tees him up for a movie such as Venom 2, which will be effects heavy and mix DG and performance capture technology.

Kelly Marcel wrote the script for the sequel to the movie that also starred Michelle Williams and featured a last-minute cameo by Woody Harrelson as chief Venom villain Cletus Kasady, aka Carnage.

Serkis is repped by CAA and Principal Entertainment.