When the final trailer for Venom: The Last Dance was released, Sony Pictures surprised fans 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 suggested 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.
Needless to say, we're sure many of you are wondering whether Venom: The Last Dance features an appearance from the MCU's Spider-Man. Heck, it's even been theorised that the young boy in the trailers is the Peter of Eddie's world!
We can confirm that neither Peter Parker nor Spider-Man appear in Venom: The Last Dance. The wall-crawler is never mentioned and doesn't show up in any post-credits scenes. His Variants are also M.I.A.
As for whether this movie sets the stage for Spider-Man 4, that's up for debate. As we explained in our post-credits scene breakdown, while Knull's plan to escape Klyntar fails, he's awake now and eager to annihilate everything. That at least set the stage for him as a future threat.
However, whether that's going to be the next Spider-Man movie - rumoured to be titled Spider-Man: King in Black - is up for debate. Sony Pictures 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.
"The most cinematic, monumental Venom movie to date, we said in our recent review of the movie, "The Last Dance leaves room for improvement but by upping the stakes and allowing Eddie and Venom to bond, it’s epic and heartfelt enough to leave us hoping this is far from Tom Hardy’s last whirl as the Lethal Protector."
In Venom: The Last Dance, Tom Hardy returns as Venom, one of Marvel's greatest and most complex characters, for the final film in the trilogy. Eddie and Venom are on the run. Hunted by both of their worlds and with the net closing in, the duo are forced into a devastating decision that will bring the curtains down on Venom and Eddie's last dance.
The movie stars Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Peggy Lu, Alanna Ubach, Stephen Graham, and Rhys Ifans. Kelly Marcel directs from a screenplay she wrote, based on a story by Hardy and Marcel. The film is produced by Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach, Amy Pascal, Kelly Marcel, Tom Hardy and Hutch Parker.
Venom: The Last Dance will be released in theaters on October 25.