Everything is related. That’s what you learned if you watched Marvel over the past few years, beginning with Black Widow, threading into Hawkeye, Loki, and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, weaving into Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love and Thunder, Loki, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and the animated Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse, then this year into the surprisingly good The Marvels and Madame Web, and soon into Noir starring Nicolas Cage. What’s the point of running a franchise as big as Marvel if it all isn’t interconnected? You may have thought the Sony-Disney marriage was going to happen in WandaVision, when Sony X-Men’s Quicksilver showed up on Disney Wanda and Vision’s doorstep, but for whatever reason it didn’t. Ryan Reynolds makes jokes about Disney and Sony as Deadpool, yet Marvel–or Disney and Sony–are afraid to strike the match. Well, everything should be related.
Venom, the first of an apparent trilogy back in 2018, began as a refreshing look into the darker edge of the Spidey canon with its first film starring Tom Hardy. With co-star Michelle Williams returning for the sequel, director Andy Serkis delivered Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and the character and its role in the wider Marvel world was revealed… sort of. Finally at film’s end, protagonist Eddie sees on the TV as J.K. Simmons J. Jonah Jameson appears on the screen to deliver the bombshell news that Tom Holland’s Peter Parker is Spider-Man–that’s the Spidey who crossed over from Sony into Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe.
So that’s where Sony is going to take us with the final film in the trilogy, right? We don’t know yet. Directed by Kelly Marcel, writer on the first two movies, Venom: The Last Dance now has its first trailer. It reveals The Offer and Fargo’s Juno Temple is stepping in as villain Dr. Payne (a twist on a minor Marvel baddie), with no mention of Michelle Williams’ return. It has a lot going on, but nothing obviously related to combining the worlds of Sony Marvel with Disney Marvel. Instead of the fun that fans want, it’s going to the teary, with The End for one or more of Eddie and Venom ahead. Why do they think we want this? Just give us more fun with these great characters!
Check out the first trailer for Venom: The Last Dance:
It’s no secret: the humor makes Eddie and Venom work. It would be nice if they brought back the end credits theme from the first movie, wouldn’t it? But why is Chiwetel Ejiofor wearing military fatigues instead of some kind of Mordo robes? (Hey, Sony, don’t even tell us he’s playing another Marvel character).
We pegged the second installment as the best superhero of 2021 here at borg. In 2018 we skipped over the first for Avengers: Infinity War, Black Panther, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse. But if you wanted to watch any of the four over and over, which would you pick today?
This one has a wait. Venom: The Last Dance doesn’t come to theaters until October 2024.
C.J. Bunce / Editor / borg
