The following contains spoilers for Venom: The Last Dance.
Key Takeaways
- Sony’s handling of the Venom trilogy was a massive waste, lacking connection to a larger universe.
- The films misused potential with characters like Knull and Carnage, failing to fully explore symbiote saga.
- Marvel’s handling of symbiotes in Spider-Man 2 video game showcased more compelling storytelling than the Sony films.
Now that Venom: The Last Dance has officially landed in theaters, it’s the end of an era for the Sony Spiderverse. Tom Hardy brought Eddie Brock and his symbiote pal, Venom to life for three full movies and for now, the studio is willing to let people believe the movie franchise is officially done. At the very least, Hardy has made it clear that he’s done with the character and that should Venom come back, it will have to be riding someone else to glory.
With Venom: The Last Dance apparently putting a lid on the three-picture series, the question has to be asked. Did Sony do a good job with Venom? It’s clear that the company gave the character more love than it has given any other entries in their little corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the company did what it needed to do in order to really use Venom correctly. Ultimately, it feels like putting the character in three movies and ending the way it did was a pretty massive waste.
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Wishing Venom Had Always Been Part Of The MCU
The real bummer when it comes to the Venom trilogy is that there were some decent ideas mixed into the there movies. Characters like Knull (who is supposed to be Thanos level) and Carnage could have been really interesting. At least Sony actually tried to make Carnage interesting, though it didn’t really accomplish that goal. Getting Woody Harrelson to play that villain was as stroke of genius. It’s too bad the studio couldn’t hire a director or writer to go along with him. The inclusion of a love interest for the serial killer also blunted the usual “chaos for chaos sake” Carnage brings with him.
It also doesn’t make a ton of sense to introduce such an impressive villain as Knull in the trilogy’s final chapter. Especially when there isn’t any connected universe to play off of for Venom 3. There isn’t an obvious way to pick up the story. It almost certainly won’t be in Kraven. That would make almost no sense at all. At the same time, there was at least a hint that both Knull and Venom would return somehow. The King in Black said as much in a post-credits scene that seems extremely pointless if there aren’t plans to find a way to keep him coming.
There were also plenty of hints that while the main part of Venom was killed off, there are ways the symbiote could survive, bond with someone else and eventually come back. However, all of that sounds incredibly complicated. It would have been quite a bit easier if Sony had simply allowed Marvel to use Venom in the MCU to begin with. It will never not be strange that the company allowed the MCU to take over the rights of Spider-Mand held onto Venom as hard as it did, especially when all three movies were seen as mediocre at best.
Venom 3 Misuses Most Interesting Aspect Of Symbiote Saga
It’s hard to argue that Sony hasn’t completely completely wasted Venom. The character could have been one of the most interesting antiheroes of the comic book movie universe. Even with the humorous parts that tended to make things a bit too goofy in the Sony franchise. Instead, the end of Venom: The Last Dance seems to go out of its way to kill off the franchise while also ruining one of the more interesting storylines when it comes to having a ton of different symbiotes all showing off their powers.
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Venom: The Last Dance |
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Cast |
Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, Stephen Graham, Peggy Lu, Clark Backo, Alanna Ubach |
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Directed By |
Kelly Marcel |
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Release Date |
October 24, 2024 |
It’s hard not to think about how things might have been different if Venom was a Marvel property. What if Knull was bringing an army of aliens to earth with him to take on the Avengers. At this point, the Spider-Man 2 video game handled the idea of symbiotes invading the city of New York in a way that made it quite a bit more compelling than anything Sony did with Eddie Brock’s tale.
It’s rather depressing to think that a video game’s story handled something like Venom better than a major studio. Of course, it’s not hard to have a better story than what people have seen from the movies in this trilogy when you look at what they’ve managed to get from critics. It’s always felt like Sony was more interested in cashing in on the Venom mythology more than it was interested in putting out good movies.
Now that Venom: The Last Dance is out and the franchise is ending, Sony has some answering to do as far as why it handled one of the most popular Marvel characters out there. When it comes to Morbius or Madame Web, they had more latitude because they are more minor characters. But the story of Eddie Brock, was a lost opportunity.
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