Venom is returning to cinema screens for his third solo adventure, titled Venom: The Last Dance and the title is surprisingly meta and potentially more revealing about the film than it might seem to be. Following Venom’s big-screen debut in 2007’s Spider-Man 3 (with Topher Grace playing the human half of the alien symbiote villain, Eddie Brock), the fanged villain/anti-hero later returned to theatres in 2018’s Venom, which introduced Tom Hardy as a new version of Eddie Brock who bonds with his own symbiotic alien lifeform.
Venom went on to earn over $856 million worldwide, negative reviews be damned, with the movie also officially kicking off Sony’s Spider-Man Universe – an arguable misnomer due to the franchise having yet to have an actual Spider-Man web-sling into action. Indeed, Sony’s Spider-Man Universe has gradually become one of the most ambiguously defined and narratively aimless attempts as a cinematic universe yet.
Aside from Venom and its 2021 sequel, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Sony’s Spider-Man Universe has found little to no mainstream popularity or box office impact. The first non-Venom entry in the SSU, 2022’s Morbius, became one of the most derided comic book movies of the modern age – and also one of its most memed, with the hashtag #ItsMorbinTime leading Sony Pictures to re-release the movie theatrically, only for it to underperform for a second time.
The failure of Morbius, however, almost pales in comparison to the massive critical and commercial flop of 2024’s Madame Web, becoming a Catwoman-level superhero movie punchline almost from the instant of its theatrical debut (with even cast members Dakota Johnson and Sydney Sweeney seemingly getting in on the Madame Web dogpile with widely circulated comments of their own.) While the SSU has another Spider-Man-free movie on the way in the upcoming Kraven the Hunter, Venom: The Last Dance could be a surprisingly frank title about what the tenuously defined future of the SSU could look like.
Venom: The Last Dance will mark Tom Hardy’s fourth portrayal of Eddie Brock and Venom, following the two Venom solo movies and Hardy’s end-credits cameo in 2021’s mammoth Sony-MCU multiverse hit Spider-Man: No Way Home. How long Hardy intends to commit a major chunk of his career to portraying Venom isn’t fully clear, but The Last Dance does seem to be at least hinting to the movie acting as a finale of sorts. However, that might also be less in reference to Hardy’s tenure as Venom and more so to the SSU as it is currently being produced and loosely (at best) tied together.
The Venom movies have arguably succeeded despite being a part of the SSU rather than because of it, and the brief adventure of Hardy’s Venom into one of the MCU’s most successful movies doubtlessly added to the character’s popularity. In short, Venom: The Last Dance might be less of a finale for Venom himself and more of a curtain closer on the SSU as a Spider-Man-less franchise, setting up the long-awaited – and long-overdue – meeting of Hardy’s Venom and one of the Spideys populating the multiverse.
While Kraven the Hunter may or may not buck the odds of SSU success, Venom has been the only Marvel-based Sony franchise outside of the Spider-Man films to strike box office gold and inspire general audience investment. That’s partly due to Venom being well-known as one of Spider-Man’s most famous and beloved antagonists, with the question of when Hardy’s Venom will finally battle a Spider-Man hovering over both Venom films and only becoming a bigger elephant in the room after his No Way Home appearance.
Contrasting that with the middling (to be generous) audience attachment to the SSU, the question of where Venom’s cinematic future is pointing to him couldn’t have a more obvious answer. Venom: The Last Dance might be an unusually candid yet weirdly ominous title for a superhero movie, one that declares itself to be Venom’s last rodeo in the SSU before audiences finally get to see him battle the Web-Head.
RELATED: The Real Reason Why Tom Hardy’s Venom Hates Spider-Man
With Andrew Garfield’s Spidey more popular than ever post-No Way Home and an abundance of other Wall-Crawlers to choose from after Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Venom might finally be ready to leave the SSU behind and get down to business with everyone’s Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.
Read more about the Venom horse here.
Venom: The Last Dance |
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| Studio: Columbia Pictures, Marvel Entertainment, Arad Productions, Matt Tolmach Productions, Pascal Pictures, Hutch Parker Entertainment, Hardy, Son & Baker |
| Running Time: n/a |
| Release Date: October 25, 2024 |
| Cast: Tom Hardy, Juno Temple, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Clark Backo |
| Director: Kelly Marcel |
| Writers: Kelly Marcel |
| Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi |
| Box Office: n/a |
