When the final trailer for Venom: The Last Dance was released, Sony Pictures dropped a bombshell by revealing a first look at Knull, God of the Symbiotes. From there, it took very little time for rumours to start swirling about Marvel Studios' Spider-Man 4 plans.
For those of you who haven't been keeping up, it's been widely reported that Tom Holland's Peter Parker will team up with Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock to battle the King in Black on Earth-616. In the wake of Avengers: Doomsday, that sort of Multiversal adventure does make sense but the Venom threequel arguably did nothing to set the stage for such a clash.
Even stranger is the fact Venom briefly visited Earth-616 in Venom: Let There Be Carnage, only to be sent home without ever meeting the web-slinger in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Then, in Venom: The Last Dance, his trip to an alternate reality was almost immediately dismissed.
That's left fans with the same question: what was the point?
For what it's worth, The Cosmic Circus is reporting today that "the inclusion of Eddie Brock in No Way Home and the brief appearance by him and Venom were always meant to lead to something more down the line."
However, whether that's going to be the next Spider-Man movie - rumoured to be titled Spider-Man: King in Black or possibly Spider-Man: Brand New Day - is up for debate. Knull's debut could just as easily be laying the groundwork for Venom 4 or a project like Sinister Six that sees the Lethal Protector assemble a team to battle his creator.
"All I can tell you is that it's happening," Holland recently said on Good Morning America while discussing his new non-alcoholic beer, Bero.
Revealing they've spent quite a bit of time working on the movie's concept, he said everyone involved now feels "strong enough" to go ahead and reiterated that shooting will begin next summer.
"The idea is crazy," the actor teased. "It's a little different to anything we've done before, but I think the fans are gonna really respond to it."
As for Hardy, he's been quoted as saying, "I want to fight Spider-Man. I want to fight Spider-Man right now. I'm well up for it...Never say never. I've loved every moment of Eddie and Venom and I was really fond of them. I'd play them any time, you know, because there's a special place that exists within me to want to operate those two characters wherever you put them in whatever capacity."
A Spider-Man 4 in the same vein as Deadpool & Wolverine has the potential to be a massive hit, so we still think it's highly likely that Peter Parker and Eddie Brock will cross paths before the Multiverse Saga ends.
Stay tuned for updates as we have them.