The first trailer for the final instalment in Sony Pictures' Venom trilogy, The Last Dance, was released yesterday, and while the footage didn't feature many major reveals (if anything, it only raised more questions), we did get confirmation that a villainous Symbiote teased in the previous movie will appear.
Towards the end of Venom: Let There Be Carnage, it was heavily implied that corrupt detective Pat Mulligan (Stephen Graham) had merged with a piece of the Carnage Symbiote. Mulligan returns in the trailer for The Last Dance, but the closed captions for the character's dialogue label him as Toxin.
"As long as Venom lives, everything, everyone will end," he says as the teaser cuts to shots of Venom in action.
It remains to be seen if Toxin is actually unleashed in this movie, but it would seem like an odd move to use the name in the subtitles if we weren't going to see Mulligan transform at least once. Will the Symbiote help him escape to join the fray in the final act, perhaps?
In the comics, Toxin was the offspring of Carnage, and has actually been depicted as both a villain and hero. When Mulligan is killed by Blackheart, Toxin merges with Eddie Brock for a time.
This might be Venom's last solo outing, but many feel it would be a missed opportunity if we never got to see a face-off with Spider-Man at some point.
A piece of the symbiote did remain behind in The MCU when Brock was zapped back to his own universe in No Way Home's post-credits scene, which has led to speculation that a confrontation might be imminent, but it's not likely to happen in this movie. Anything is possible, of course, but if Tom Holland had filmed any scenes for The Last Dance, there's a pretty good chance we'd have heard about it by now.
Also, yesterday's trailer seemed to suggest that Sony may have ret-conned this moment from No Way Home, as we see Chiwetel Ejiofor's character appear to capture the symbiote fragment in the same bar Brock was drinking in.
“Eddie and Venom are on the run," reads the synopsis. "Hunted by both their worlds and with net closing in, the duo are forced into a devastating decision that will bring the curtain down on Venom and Eddie’s last day”
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