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Venom: The Last Dance says no to your MCU hopes and dreams

ByVanessa

Oct 26, 2024

Warning: Full spoilers follow Venom: The Last Dance.

The eternal irony of the Sony Marvel films – aka Sony's Spider-Man universe – is that in a Hollywood where interconnected superhero worlds are a dominant force, the Spidey spin-offs that make up Sony's slate really have very little to do with each other. And while most of these films have larger problems that go beyond the question of how they connect or not, in the case of the Venom trilogy – presumably the crown jewel of the SSMU? – The lack of connective tissue in the world of Spider-Man has always been glaring.

Here's how to watch Sony's Spider-Man universe in chronological order

The new and seemingly final film in the Venom trilogy, Venom: The Last Dancereiterates the “No Spider-Man” stance. And while there are many possible reasons why a Tom Hardy/Tom Holland Venom/Spidey crossover never happened – from creative decisions to legal or contractual decisions to perhaps even the politics of the relationship between Kevin Feige's Marvel Studios and Sony – is the funny thing about it is the previous Venom film And The previous Spider-Man film seemed to finally establish a connection between the two universes. But that production is simply waved away in “The Last Dance,” as if to say, “Oh, you fans thought we were getting ready for something big?” Nahhhh.”

In “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” from 2021, he was seen, among others Post-credits scene where Hardy's Eddie Brock/Venom was seemingly transported into the MCU somehow. Once there, the bonded couple sees on television that J. Jonah Jameson has revealed Peter Parker's identity to the world (from the End of Spider-Man: Far From Home), and Venom licks the screen right where Spidey's face is and says “that guy.” The symbiote was obviously very interested in Peter for some strange reason.

To me it felt like Sony was planning a confrontation!

Two months later, Spider-Man: No Way Home was released, in this film Post-credits scene We've seen that Eddie/Venom's very brief foray into the MCU has already come to an end. Immediately following the Let There Be Carnage scene, Eddie/Venom sits in a bar and talks to a bartender (Ted Lasso's Cristo Fernández) about all the “superhumans” that live in this universe. “Maybe I should go to New York and talk to that Spider-Man,” he says, before suddenly being magically carried away… but not before leaving the tiniest bit of Venom symbiote on the bar.

And The It seemed like Marvel Studios got Hardy out of the MCU as quickly as possible.

It was also the last time we saw Eddie/Venom before The Last Dance, and in fact they are still in the MCU as the new film begins. The above bar scene is even shown to us again, although it is a shortened version in which some important parts are missing. While the “purple stone-loving alien” is still mentioned in “The Last Dance,” the other “superhumans” aren't spoken of, and most importantly…Spider-Man isn't mentioned. The line about Eddie/Venom going to New York to find the wallcrawler is also gone. (Venom even jokes about being tired of the multiverse before they leave.)

The funny thing is that in The Last Dance there is a recurring thread about Hardy's characters wanting to go to New York. Only now it's not about finding Spidey, it's because the symbiote has always wanted to see the Statue of Liberty. One can almost imagine that an earlier draft of the script was about the pair trying to get to Manhattan to find Spider-Man, as previously stated in not one but two different post-credits films. Scenes were shown, but then the decision was made: “Uh, we're going in a different direction.” And who not Do you even want to see the Statue of Liberty in person?

It turns out that Fernández's bartender has a counterpart from the Venom universe (you can tell them apart because the guy from the Venom world has long hair!). And indeed, he plays a role The Last Dance post-credits scenealthough it's unclear what that will really mean, if anything. At the beginning of the film, Eddie/Venom left a small part of the symbiote in the bar, just like they did in the MCU. So maybe this will lead to a new version of Venom for Sony? But what about the rest of the symbiotes left behind in the MCU? At the price that Marvel has ignored the revelations of the post-credits scene I wouldn't be surprised if we never hear about it again in recent years.

My colleague Tom Jorgensen (who reviewed Venom: The Last Dance for IGN) pointed out that it would have been cool for Eddie to finally make it to New York at the end of the film just to see Andrew Garfield swinging Spider-Man across the skyline. Fans have long speculated that the Hardy Venom films take place in this world. Even if Tom Hardy never appeared as Venom again, this could have been an interesting conclusion to his story. His Venom never met Spider-Man, but rather Spider-Man does there is there.

But instead, it just feels like Sony has closed the door on the MCU after hinting at what could have been.