In Venom: Let There Be Carnage's post-credits scene, Eddie Brock was pulled to Earth-616 where his alien suit immediately took great interest in a news report about Spider-Man.
The events of Spider-Man: No Way Home revealed that Doctor Strange's botched spell - courtesy of Peter Parker's constant input - had started pulling everyone who knows the wall-crawler's secret identity into the Sacred Timeline. That explained Venom's unexpected arrival on Earth-616, though he never joined the final battle and instead chose to remain in Mexico.
That was confirmed by Spider-Man: No Way Home's stinger, with Eddie sent back home in the same manner as the Spider-Men and Sinister Six Five.
Venom: The Last Dance opens by recreating the 2021 movie's post-credits scene as the Lethal Protector learns about Iron Man and Thanos. However, when he returns home this time, the glowing effects from Spider-Man: No Way Home are replaced by one of the portals later used by Knull to send his Xenophage across the universe.
Now, we have a comparison video of both scenes that raises more questions. As you'll see, Venom: The Last Dance references the MCU as Eddie talks about Thanos and the Infinity Stones, though it looks like the whole sequence has been reshot.
The "Spider-Man" reference is now completely absent; instead, Venom makes Eddie stand up before a portal sucks them back into Sony's Spider-Man Universe. The Lethal Protector no longer vanishes in the glowing light cast by Strange's spell, so why the change? We still don't know.
Sony might have wanted to distance Venom: The Last Dance from Spider-Man: No Way Home or, alternatively, the portal-style changed because it's meant to tease the fact Knull can travel through multiple realities, not just his own. Either way, it's a perplexing alteration that does little to lend any weight to rumours Spider-Man 4 will pair up Peter and Eddie to fight the King in Black.
The studio might have thought having two different portal designs would confuse moviegoers; if so, that's very odd because Spider-Man: No Way Home is one of the biggest superhero movies ever and we're sure no one forgot such a huge Venom tease.
After this scene, Sony recreates the moment a piece of the Symbiote is left behind on the bar, with it taken into custody by Rex Strickland, either as a way of resurrecting the character in a future movie or to undo the aforementioned stinger...even though the piece of alien is still on Earth-616. It's all very messy, though we'd expect no less from the SSU.
You can watch the comparison in the player below.
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 is now playing in theaters.