Spoiler alert! The following post discusses the ending of “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” so beware if you haven’t seen it yet.
Venom’s made a home for himself on the big screen after two movies, and now it looks like he’s headed for a largersuperhero universe – although time will tell which one.
In the new sequel “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” journalist Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and the violent, sardonic and kinda fun-loving alien symbiote inside of him (also voiced by Hardy) overcame their differences to defeat supervillain lovebirds Carnage (Woody Harrelson) and Shriek (Naomie Harris) and save San Francisco. Naturally, that means vacation time for the reconnected best friends, though their relaxing getaway gets awfully crazy and features a surprising guest star.
In an end-credits scene, Eddie’s seen hanging out in a hotel room that looks like it’s in the New Orleans French Quarter, and Venom asks Eddie if he wants to get a glimpse of the alien’s mind-blowing cosmic knowledge. Eddie accepts the offer, lights flash and there’s a disruption on the TV: All of a sudden, Eddie’s in a totally different, more posh hotel room with a duck towel on the bed. A breaking-news alert comes on the TV that Marvel Cinematic Universe fans have seen before: It’s pretty much the end-credits scene from 2019’s“Spider-Man: Far From Home,” where J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons) publicly outs teenage Peter Parker (Tom Holland) as Spider-Man.
Venom’s long tongue is seen licking Peter’s image, and he cryptically says, “That guy.”
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So does this mean Venom’s now the newest member of the MCU? If so, the weird situation in the hotel room might hint at Eddie/Venom getting caught up in the dramas of the multiverse, a sandbox of alternate realities that Disney’s Marvel movies and TV shows are currently exploring.
“Who wouldn’t want to campaign in some aspect to say, ‘Hey, I’m playing Venom. I want to be accepted in the Marvel canon, even though all of the children are spread across two different parents,” Hardy recently told USA TODAY with a grin.“I appreciate there’s a lot of legal issues here, but we’re family!’ “
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The coming film “Spider-Man: No Way Home” (in theaters Dec. 17) teams Spidey and sorcerer Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) for a multiverse-bending adventure dealing with Peter’s secret-identity reveal, and other Spidey foes from comic-book lore are showing up – including Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus from “Spider-Man 2” – so perhaps Venom might make an appearance.
More likely, though, the “Venom” stinger sets up a place for Hardy’s antihero to exist in Sony’s fledgling Spidey-centric galaxy as it goes its own way, spinning off from the MCU. (Since Sony owns the movie rights to Spider-Man characters, the studio and Disney had a deal for Holland’s hero to appear in the “Avengers” movies and other MCU projects that ends with “No Way Home.”)
In addition to future Spidey films, this new Sony superhero universe looks to include the coming “Morbius” (Jan. 28), with Jared Leto as the title vampire (Hardy declined to comment whether Venom will make an appearance) and Michael Keaton reprising his “Spider-Man: Homecoming” role as the Vulture; “Kraven the Hunter” (Jan. 13, 2023) starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson; and an untitled movie in development directed by Olivia Wilde that’s expected to feature Spider-Woman.
Contributing: Andrea Mandell
