The Big Picture

Sony’s
Venom: The Last Dance
introduces confusing continuity issues, potentially retconning crucial events from the MCU.
Venom’s inclusion in
No Way Home
doesn’t align logically with Multiversal chaos, raising further concerns about Sony’s choices.
Poor communication between Sony and Marvel is creating messy storylines, reflecting a larger issue in managing
Spider-Man
films.

Compared to how meticulous Marvel Studios has been in developing the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s strict continuity, the same cannot be said for Sony and their embattled Spider-Man spin-offs like Venom: The Last Dance. Wonky continuity isn’t really anything new in Marvel movies. The continuity in the original X-Men universe is so bad that Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) is constantly making fun of it in his numerous movies. The Venom movies have always had a twinge of humor attached to them, but the introduction of a potentially multiverse-destroying retcon in the third and final film raises many questions that shouldn’t be raised to begin with.

The first trailer for Venom: The Last Dance was just recently released, finally giving Marvel fans an idea of what to expect from Eddie Brock’s (Tom Hardy) last Venom film. After being branded as criminals in Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Eddie and Venom (also Tom Hardy) are on the run while being relentlessly pursued by a secretive military organization. However, when one of the members of this secret organization finds a piece of the Venom symbiote, it not only introduces grave implications for a big continuity break, but also undermines potential new plot developments in the MCU.

Venom: The Last Dance Eddie Brock and Venom are thrust into a deadly confrontation with a formidable new enemy that threatens the city they call home. As the stakes rise, they must work together to uncover the true nature of this new threat while dealing with the complexities of their unique relationship. The film delves into their dynamic partnership, exploring themes of identity, power, and redemption, culminating in an epic battle that will shape their destinies.Release Date October 25, 2024 Director Kelly Marcel

‘Venom: The Last Dance’ Potentially Retcons the End-Credits Scene of ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’
As many Spider-Man fans likely remember, Eddie and Venom were among the individuals who were brought into the MCU due to Doctor Strange’s (Benedict Cumberbatch) spell in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Despite this, the human reporter and his alien companion are not active participants in the narrative, as they’re a long way from New York while the events of No Way Home are taking place. Instead, they’re on an island getaway when they are inadvertently taken to a new dimension, though they still discover this world is not their own when they see a news report involving J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons) and Spider-Man (Tom Holland). Eddie and Venom decide to meet this Spider-Man after getting an MCU history lesson from a local bartender (Cristo Fernández), but they are sent back to their home dimension before they can do so.

However, a single sliver of Venom is left behind, creeping and crawling over the bar top. The implications of this end-credits sequence are endless, with the obvious line to draw being that Tom Holland’s Spider-Man will get his black symbiote suit. Peter Parker does get that outfit in the comics during the Secret Wars storyline, and given how the sixth Avengers film is titled Avengers: Secret Wars, it makes perfect sense to introduce that imperative canon event for Spider-Man now…unless you’re Sony.

The trailer for Venom: The Last Dance has led to a firestorm of fans questioning the film’s canon, as we see one of the film’s villains, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor (who is almost certainly not playing the same character he plays in the Doctor Strange films), capturing that piece of the symbiote that was left behind. It’s clearly the same bar with the same bartender, yet Ejiofor’s villain is a brand-new character who resides in Venom’s universe. So…how in the name of Knull did this military operative get to a bar in a completely different universe? Unless he’s a member of the TVA, it doesn’t make a lick of sense, and it makes No Way Home’s exciting end-credits tease a lot less so. If Sony hoped to gain attention online for this very head-scratching scene, they succeeded, but we’re not sure if that’s a good thing.

Venom’s Inclusion in ‘No Way Home’ Doesn’t Make Sense To Begin With

The potential retconning of Spider-Man: No Way Home’s end-credits sequence is disappointing, but sadly, it’s not surprising. Sony’s track record of confusing continuity decisions goes way back, with Venom’s inclusion in Tom Holland’s third Spider-Man film, to begin with, being just one example. At first glance, the moment Venom and Eddie are taken to the MCU in Venom: Let There Be Carnage seems plausible, though that’s admittedly because plot details for No Way Home were being kept under wraps then.

However, once we do understand the reasoning for the Multiversal chaos in Spider-Man: No Way Home, Venom’s inclusion makes a lot less sense. When Doctor Strange is explaining how his spell went haywire to Peter, he says the spell is bringing in “an infinite number of people who know Peter Parker is Spider-Man, and if that spell gets loose, they’re all coming here”. Venom: Let There Be Carnage made it abundantly clear that Venom and Eddie not only don’t know who Spider-Man is, but they also don’t know Peter Parker is Spider-Man. So why are they here? Probably because Sony wanted them there.

Sony and Marvel Need To Communicate Better on Future Spider-Man Stories

Back during the press tour for Spider-Man: Homecoming, a clip went viral of Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige looking confused when then-Sony producer Amy Pascal floated the idea of Tom Hardy’s Venom meeting Tom Holland’s Spider-Man. Reports and rumors have circulated that the two Spidey partners can’t decide on what direction to take a fourth Tom Holland-led Spider-Man film, with Marvel reportedly wanting to tell a more grounded story, while Sony allegedly wants an installment on a grander scale. There’s even cause for concern that the movie won’t happen at all, since Sony almost put their deal with Marvel to a stop in 2019.

It seems widely apparent that this rivalry between Marvel and Sony is making all of their movies worse, as they keep introducing concepts in one movie and then undoing them immediately in the next one. Who knows if we’ll ever see Michael Keaton as The Vulture again, as his ill-advised return as the character in Morbius in another completely different universe was so confusing that even Michael Keaton didn’t get it. We’d even be willing to bet every dollar we got that Madame Web was supposed to be an origin story for Tom Holland’s Spider-Man before Sony was talked out of it. Why else would the movie be set in the early 2000s?

Right now, Sony and Marvel look like two bitter divorced parents arguing over the custody of their child, Spider-Man. Some sort of amicable solution needs to take place at some point for the better of one of the superhero genre’s most important IPs. If not, there’s a very real risk that audiences will lose more and more interest in these projects and simply refuse to watch them.

Venom: The Last Dance premieres in theaters on October 25th, 2024. The first Venom is available to watch on Disney+ in the U.S.

Watch on Disney+