Based on all that we are hearing, the upcoming 2024 release of Venom: The Last Dance will be the final go-round for Tom Hardy and his symbiote buddy, Venom. And from the looks of this final trailer, the franchise plans to go out with a bang! As promised in previous views at Venom: The Last Dance, we are getting loads of symbiote action (including symbiote fish, and that symbiote horse). And in the final trailer, posted above, we get the first reference to – and look at – the character I believe will be Knull, Venom’s creator. Watch the trailer, and we’ll discuss below.
OK, so, the Venom franchise actually has done a pretty good job building out the mythology of the symbiote, even though the comic origin was changed drastically in the initial Venom movie. To be fair, Venom’s origin continuously evolved in the comics, as well, though it has been come to be understood that Venom and the rest of the symbiotes were created by Knull, an evil god who created the All-Black when his interplanetary kingdom was being threatened by the Celestials.
This, I believe, will be Knull in the movie Venom: The Last Dance.
Venom refers to this threat as his “creator.” And when we see this character in the trailer, he/it is surrounded by something Venom fans might recognize as the Hive Mind, a collective that fuels the actions of the symbiotes as they search for suitable hosts.
It gets pretty complicated.
And really, I have to give Venom: The Last Dance credit for even attempting to explore these far-fetched corners of the Venom mythology. Tom Hardy and his producing partner/director Kelly Marcel have embraced the sci-fi elements that come with the character, and as we see in the trailer for this sequel, Venom claims that his world will be coming to Earth, creating all kinds of chaos.
At the same time, we also get the expected crude jokes that are common in the Venom series, from the symbiote demanding money to gamble, to a drunk guy peeing on Eddie Brock’s open-toe sandals. Classy!
Do you know who is still missing from the trailer? Spider-Man, and any reference or connection to an existing Peter Parker, be it Tom Holland, Andrew Garfield, or Tobey Maguire. There have been sprinkles of threads connecting Tom Hardy to the MCU, and vice versa. But if this really is the last Venom movie, then I suppose that the MCU will have to do its own thing with the symbiote, either in Holland’s anticipated Spider-Man 4, or even further down the road.
Look for Venom: The Last Dance when it opens in theaters beginning on October 25. And if you still need more of a Spider-Man fix after that movie, Sony also has Kraven the Hunter hitting screens in December.
