Venom: Let There Be Carnage
is out in theaters, which means you can finally see Andy Serkis and Tom Hardy’s new superhero story that’s part of the Sony Spider-Man Universe (SSU). It also means you can finally see the connection between Venom 2 and Spider-Man: No Way Home. That’s not actually a spoiler if you haven’t seen the Venom sequel. Sony made it clear from the trailers that the story will have some MCU Easter eggs. That’s the kind of connection the SSU needs to be profitable. You can’t tell stories like Venom, Morbius, and Kraven and hope to be successful without tying them to Tom Holland’s Spider-Man. And that Spider-Man is anchored in the MCU.
But now that Venom 2 has finally hit theaters, director Andy Serkis can finally answer questions about the No Way Home connection. Here’s I’ll tell you that the big Let There Be Carnage spoilers follow.
The big post-credits scene
Sony teased Spider-Man and Avengers events in its previous trailers. But we didn’t really expect to see a Tom Holland cameo anywhere in the movie. Venom 2 is a story that continues to explore the relationship between Eddie Brock and Venom, both played by Tom Hardy. We need this sort of character development before Venom can interact with Spider-Man again. As a reminder, Venom and Spider-Man did come face to face before, in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 film.
That’s why the Venom 2 post-credits scene made the most of its MCU Spider-Man hook. And because Sony hosted fan screenings of Venom 2, we’ve known all along that Holland’s Spider-Man and J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons) will appear in Venom 2.
Eddie and Venom are talking in a hotel during that scene, with the latter offering to show Eddie what the symbiotes have witnessed across time and universes. That’s where the multiverse glitch happens, with the two being transported in the MCU reality. The news is playing on TV, with Jameson outing Peter Parker as Spider-Man.
This tells us the end of Venom 2 and Far From Home are aligned. We know from leaks that No Way Home picks up right after Far From Home. That means the first scenes in No Way Home will happen just as Eddie is trying to figure out where he is.
The Spider-Man Easter egg in ‘Venom 2’
Serkis talked to The Hollywood Reporter about his work on Let There Be Carnage, and the Venom 2 post-credits scene came up.
THR asked the Venom 2 director whether the mid-credits scene was in flux until the very last minute, given that it has far-reaching implications. Serkis acknowledged that the Spider-Man cameo was the big elephant in the room during production. Spider-Man is an element that everyone knew they had to have in the film:
100 percent in flux, yeah. It couldn’t have been more in flux-y if you tried. (Laughs.) Yeah, of course, it was something that they talked about from before I even came on to the movie. There were moments where he [Spider-Man] was going to be in the story, potentially, and then he wasn’t. But no, we decided that we wanted to really examine the Venom-verse first. So as we were going through principal photography, the inevitable discussions had to be had, but it wasn’t until very, very late on that we reached the precise notion of the teaser that we wanted to lay in there.
This proves, yet again, that no matter what SSU movies Sony makes, these Spider-Man spin-offs need to have Spidey in them. And it so happens that Holland is the main Spider-Man right now. That’s why stories like Venom have to tie to the MCU. Things might change, of course, once the other Spider-Men arrive in No Way Home. But, in the future, you should expect Peter Parker cameos in all of Sony’s SSU movies. And they will likely land in the post-credits scenes.
