Shortly after Venom: The Last Dance's release last year, it was reported that Sony Pictures was planning to pit Spider-Man and Venom against Knull in Spider-Man 4.
The Venom threequel may have ended Eddie Brock's symbiosis with Venom, but it established Knull as a Multiversal threat. Of course, with a piece of the Venom Symbiote left on Earth 616, it was easy enough to imagine how Eddie might be reunited with his alien costume (and how it could lead to Peter Parker finally getting his black suit).
Venom: The Last Dance did so-so numbers at the box office, and while a Spider-Man crossover never happened, most fans weren't too upset about Tom Holland and Tom Hardy never sharing the screen.
Had Spider-Man: Brand New Day been released between Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, the odds of Spidey meeting Venom would have likely been higher. Instead of more Multiversal madness, we're getting a street-level story featuring The Punisher, The Hulk, Scorpion, and no Venom or Knull.
Addressing that, The Cosmic Circus' Alex Perez—who was first to break the Knull rumour— has said, "When I mentioned Knull being the villain for [Spider-Man 4], this was part of Sony’s push to involve their symbiote storyline and connect it to The Last Dance. For a while, it was. They even teased it in a press release. However, Marvel wanted a different direction: the one we have now."
This might sound like a scooper attempting to save face, but honestly, it makes sense and lines up with what we were hearing at the time, too. Venom: Let There Be Carnage was hampered by the pandemic, but Sony expected The Last Dance to be a mega-hit.
Instead, the movie topped out at $478.9 million, Kraven the Hunter bombed, and Kevin Feige had little interest in playing with Avi Arad's broken toys. That leaves Andy Serkis' Knull in limbo, with plans for an Agent Venom feature put on hold.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings helmer Destin Daniel Cretton directs Spider-Man: Brand New Day from a script by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers. Tom Holland leads a cast that also includes Jon Bernthal, Mark Ruffalo, Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Michael Mando, and Liza Colón-Zayas.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day will be released in theaters on July 31, 2026. You can see some new photos from the set of the movie in the X posts below.