‘Venom 2’ Post-Credits Scene – How Ending Changes Sony’s Marvel-verse

SPOILER WARNING Do not read if you haven’t seen “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,”Currently playing in theaters

The spider’s first appearance in “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” it’s smashed dead by the movie’s villain, Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson). Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson) is busy writing an inane invitation to Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy), to see Eddie’s execution. A large spider land on the notecard that Cletus is using, and the serial killer decides to slam his hand down to kill the creature.

The moment could be seen as a wink to fans who’ve made no secret of their frustration that Eddie and Venom — the alien symbiote occupying Eddie’s body and mind — haven’t been able to interact with Venom’s best-known nemesis, Spider-Man. Since 2015, that’s been impossible. A tangled web of intellectual property dealmaking allowed Sony and Disney to share the web-slinger within Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe. But it also kept the 900-some Marvel Comics characters most closely in Spidey’s orbit strictly under Sony’s cinematic umbrella, with Tom Holland’s Peter Parker outside of it. It’s meant that 2018’s “Venom” didn’t even allude to Spider-Man, even though the characters are closely linked in the comics and Venom played a critical role in 2007’s “Spider-Man 3”TobeyMaguire is the star, and Topher Grace portrays Eddie Brock.

Other than Cletus’ spider smackdown, there’s no mention of arachnids of any kind throughout “Let There Be Carnage,” either — that is, until the post-credits scene.

Eddie and Venom are caught in a fleabag hotel in the south of the U.S. border. They banter about the nature the universe, Venom laughing that no human can handle the many realities the alien symbiotes have faced in their lives. Eddie insists to Venom that he could handle it, and right when Venom says he’s about to show Eddie what he’s talking about, their lodging transforms into a luxurious resort hotel room.

Something has clearly changed the fabric of Eddie and Venom’s reality. Venom insists it wasn’t him. And then they both notice the TV, which has shifted from a telenovela to a news report anchored by the muckraking version of J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons) from the post-credits scene in 2019’s “Spider-Man: Far From Home,”With a shot that shows Peter Parker (Tom Holland), in his Spider-Man costume but without his mask. Venom licks Peter’s face on the TV and says he looks “tasty,” before the bewildered (new) resident of the hotel room pops in from the bathroom and asks Eddie what he’s doing there. Eddie shrugs. End of the scene.

Many audiences find those last beats in the end of the “Let There Be Carnage” post-credits scene many not have even been audible amid the raucous cheers from fans realizing what it all means: Holland’s Spider-Man and Hardy’s Venom can finally exist in the same movie.

The implications of the scene appear to be even more far-reaching, fundamentally changing how fans should think about Spider-Man, the MCU, and Sony’s upcoming slate of Marvel comics adaptations. These are the most pressing questions we have:

This means that Venom could appear in “Spider-Man: No Way Home”What is December?

Sony isn’t commenting — why would they, it’s a major spoiler! — but with the third of Holland’s “Spider-Man” movies set to debut in just two-and-a-half months, why else would the studio drop this tease if Hardy wasn’t set to appear in it? First trailer for “No Way Home” already resurrected a different Spidey villain, Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock from 2004’s “Spider-Man 2,” and strongly implied several other established Spidey rogues — like Jamie Foxx’s Electro, from 2014’s “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” with Andrew Garfield, and Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin, from 2002’s “Spider-Man” with Maguire — will show up as well.

Venom is a member of the Spidey comics, as fans know. Venom was, in fact, a member of the Spidey villain group known as the Sinister Six at different times. Other members have included, yes, Doc Ock, Green Goblin and Electro — as well as other established Spidey movie villains like Vulture (Michael Keaton, from 2017’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming”) and Sandman (Thomas Hayden Church, from 2007’s “Spider-Man 3”

Even if Venom doesn’t show up in “No Way Home,” it’s clear that he and Holland’s Spider-Man are fated to share the screen. It could be in a “Sinister Six”Film. 2018 “Spider-Man”Amy Pascal, producer SubmittedVanity Fair that she was still eager to make one with Drew Goddard, the writer-director“The Cabin in the Woods”); “No Way Home”This could open the door to that film’s eventual realization.

Holland to appear in “Venom 3,”The future “Kraven the Hunter,” or any other of Sony’s Marvel movies that aren’t produced by Marvel Studios?

In August 2019, in the wake of the $1.13 billion–grossing success of “Far From Home” — the highest-grossing film in Sony Pictures history — Disney and Sony briefly parted ways on Spider-Man over Disney’s desire for a bigger take than the 5% of the “Spider-Man”It was getting more movie grosses. Holland reportedly brokered a peace, cooler heads prevailed, and a month later, Sony and Disney announced that they’d renegotiated, with Disney upping its take of the grosses — and contribution to the financing — to roughly 25%.

In that announcement, Marvel Studios chief creative officer Kevin Feige also dropped a tantalizing hint that the new deal was more flexible in terms of which cinematic universes Holland’s Spider-Man could cast his web.

“Spider-Man is a powerful icon and hero whose story crosses all ages and audiences around the globe,” Feige said. “He also happens to be the only hero with the superpower to cross cinematic universes, so as Sony continues to develop their own Spidey-verse, you never know what surprises the future might hold.”

But, the post-credits scene is actually better “Let There Be Carnage”This suggests that Venom is the character who’s jumped from Sony’s Marvel-verse into the (more poshly appointed) MCU — most likely by the spell that Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) casts in the “No Way Home”Trailer that makes the multiverse go crazy

Feige is not one to mince his words, however. And in May, after Sony Pictures cast Aaron Taylor-Johnson to play Spider-Man villain (and Sinister Six alum) Kraven the Hunter in his own standalone movie, Sony’s Motion Picture Group president Sanford Panitch told VarietyThat “there actually is a plan” to allow Spider-Man more flexibility to appear within Sony’s Marvel universe.

“I think now maybe it’s getting a little more clear for people where we’re headed and I think when ‘No Way Home’ comes out, even more will be revealed,”Panitch spoke.

Yes, Sony wants to create a cinematic universe featuring Marvel characters centered around Spider-Man. “Let There Be Carnage” was the first domino to fall in the studio’s plan to make that happen.

Holland to leave the MCU

No. An explicit part of Sony and Disney’s new deal is for Spider-Man to appear in one more Marvel Studios film. It could be in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,”Set to open March 2022. (The film was directed by original). “Spider-Man” auteur Sam Raimi.) More likely, Holland’s Spider-Man will show up in an as-yet-unannounced crossover movie — something like “Avengers 5.”

The picture becomes much more fuzzy after that point. One possibility is that the events in “No Way Home” effectively creates two different versions of Holland’s Peter Parker: one that lives on in the MCU, the other, a slightly different Peter who occupies Sony’s Marvel universe. If that sounds too outlandish, it’s already happened in a Spidey movie: 2018’s Oscar-winning animated feature “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” featured two Peter Parkers — one voiced by Chris Pine, the other by Jake Johnson — from different strands of the multiverse.

Besides, Marvel Studios’ Disney Plus series “Loki” featured a plethora of different versions of Tom Hiddleston’s god of mischief, and we’ve already met an alternative, zombie-fighting version of Holland’s Peter Parker in Marvel Studios’ animated Disney Plus series “What If…?”The character was voiced by Hudson Thames (a sound-alike actor).

More importantly, should “No Way Home” perform as well as Sony and Disney hope it will and become the first pandemic-era movie to gross $1 billion, both studios will be highly motivated to keep Holland slinging webs in elaborate spandex for as long as the actor wants to do it.

Let’s not forget about the last question. “Morbius”Jared Leto

Here’s where Sony’s plans for its Marvel-verse have the potential to get super confusing. Before the pandemic. “Morbius” — starring Jared Leto as scientist, and Spider-Man foe, Michael Morbius, who cures himself of a rare blood disorder by making himself into, essentially, a powerful vampire — was supposed to open in July 2020, a year before “No Way Home’s”Original debut was scheduled for July 2021.

Sony’s first trailer for “Morbius” — released, sigh, in January 2020 — caused no small amount of Twitterpretation among Marvel fans, thanks to a shot of Leto walking in front of a poster of a Raimi-era version of Spider-Man with the word “MURDERER” scrawled across it, followed by the surprise appearance of Keaton’s Adrian Toomes from 2017’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming.” When director Daniel Espinosa shot these scenes, he expected that they would come before the multiverse-shattering events of “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”Fortunately, the pandemic has not affected anyone. “Morbius” is now scheduled to debut on Jan. 28, 2022 — six weeks after “No Way Home”The new facility will open Dec. 17.

This would be a great idea. “Morbius”An accidental prequel to whatever grand plan Sony has for the Marvel-verse.

This ultimately may only matter to a small subset of Marvel super-fans, but it’s the starkest example yet of the perils of attempting serialized storytelling at a blockbuster movie scale.