Venom: The Last Dance moves the action out of San Francisco and, as a result, we say goodbye to at least a few fan-favourite supporting characters.
Mrs. Chen shows up in Las Vegas, but Michelle Williams' Anne Weying - who has transformed into She-Venom on two occasions now - is nowhere to be seen. The Hollywood Reporter asked writer and director Kelly Marcel about that decision in a recent interview.
"We really wanted to isolate them. We wanted to take them away from their comfort zone," she explained. "We wanted to take them away from everything they knew and everyone they loved, so that they really only had each other to rely on now."
"We knew that we wanted them to reach symbiosis with each other and decide that they were going to be the Lethal Protector, and that they were going to go on this journey together...all of the characters from the previous movies - other than Peggy Lu’s Mrs. Chen - didn’t belong in this road trip story."
Asked why Eddie and Anne never rekindled their romance, Marcel added, "We do listen to the fans. After each movie, we go back and we look at what people liked and what people didn’t like. And it was very, very clear that people were very wedded to the relationship between Venom and Eddie."
"That was what they loved, but they also loved Dr. Dan [Reid Scott] in Venom. So we were like, 'Well, we’ve got to bring Reid back because everybody loves him.' The axis on which these movies spin is Venom and Eddie’s relationship, and it’s always been about them."
Venom: The Last Dance begins where Spider-Man: No Way Home ended, but that doesn't mean Marvel Studios played a role in how this story played out. "They weren’t [involved] because, where we find ourselves in the MCU, it’s already something that we had shot," she said of Spider-Man: No Way Home's mid-credits scene. "Yeah, it already existed."
In other words, Sony added that and Spidey's cameo in Venom: Let There Be Carnage, likely without Marvel Studio's go-ahead (similar to The Vulture's role in Morbius). As for what the plan is for the piece of Symbiote left on Earth-616, Marcel said, "I think it’s anyone’s guess at this point."
Talk then turned to where the Venom franchise could go next, and it still sounds like Venom 4 is more likely than Spider-Man 4.
"Yes, it is the end of a contract. We were asked to do three, we’ve delivered three, and who knows what the future holds," the filmmaker told the trade. "I hope that we’ve laid groundwork for them in this third movie with other characters and other symbiotes and bad guys that they can run with, should they choose."
"But this is the last one for Venom and Eddie," Marcel noted. "We have definitely given it forethought, so we definitely know what those stories could be, should they want them."
The future for Venom is uncertain, but if this really is the last dance...well, just as many fans will be happy about that as those who are disappointed given how divisive the franchise has been since it launched in 2018.
Stay tuned for updates.