Editor’s Note: The following article contains spoilers for Venom: The Last Dance
Summary
Now thatVenom: The Last Danceis in theaters, Marvel fans can finally see what the plan was for the Eddie Brock trilogy. To say that things are a bit disjointed would be a bit of an understatement. Introducing a villain who is supposed to be on the same level of power as Thanos in the final installment and giving him about five minutes of screen time always seemed like an odd plan.
Part of the reason the plan seems so strange is that there has been lots of talk thatVenom: The Last Dancewon’t be the last time audiences see the big bad. Knull, otherwise known as The King In Black, has been teased as a villain who willappear in multiple franchises. He could even eventually jump over to the MCU. However, after seeing Venom 3 and seeing how well it isn’t doing both in reviews and the box office, it feels like Sony’s best bet would be to just let the villain get shelved and stop trying to make Marvel movies altogether.
Leave Knull In Prison And Move On
While Knull played animportant part in the plotfor Venom 3, the villain operated from long distance. Stuck on a planet that was turned into a prison by his former subjects, the symbiotes, the big bad launched a plan to spring himself. He would send his new army of Xenophages to go and find the key that would let him out. Called a Codex, this key is part of Venom’s DNA thanks to having brought Eddie Brock back to life after being killed inVenom: Let There Be Carnage.
Towards the end of the latest movie, several Xenophages converge on Venom to try to capture him and get the Codex once and for all. However, several human allies and an army of symbiotes are able to kill off the near-unkillable alien creatures, and Knull is left estranged on his prison planet. What’s more, because Venom dies (or appears to die), it’sassumed that the Codex has been destroyed.
Cast
Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, Stephen Graham, Peggy Lu, Clark Backo, Alanna Ubach
Release Date
July 20, 2025
That detail makes the post-credits scene whereKnull doesn’t seem enragedbut rather encouraged and even vows that he’s “coming.” That doesn’t make a ton of sense, though there are different ways Sony could write him out of that prison planet should it decide it wants to go back to the well. But it shouldn’t.
It’s not just thatVenom: The Last Danceis a bad movie, as evidenced by aRotten Tomatoesscore of just 36 percent.
It’s not just thatVenom: The Last Danceis a bad movie, as evidenced by aRotten Tomatoesscore of just 36 percent. It’s not just that the moviehad a bad opening weekend, in fact the worst opening weekend of the trilogy, box-office-wise. It’s a combination of the two.
While it’s true thataccording to Rotten Tomatoes viewers, the movie is better than critics are giving it credit for, but the money that’s coming in shows that while those who go see the movie mostly liked it, there isn’t a ton of interest. In fact, there hasn’t been an interest in the Sonyverse movies for a while. The company would be best suited to just let Knull sit on his prison planet until the end of time.
The biggest reasonKnull should be left aloneis that things aren’t getting better when it comes to quality in the Sonyverse. A sloppily slapped together final installment in the trilogy had storylines go nowhere and while it’s possible the short runtime was a mercy, everything seems hurried to get to the end where the audience finds whether or not the King in Black will get free.
Characters were introduced, backstories were introduced especially that made little sense and meant even less. Audiences are going to have to spend hours of their life trying to figure out why exactly there was any point to one of the scientists at Area 51 insisting she wear a Christmas pin on her lab coat.For the movie’s purposes, it appears the only point was to make sure that she got repeatedly called “Christmas” by the antagonist general.
There were other useless plotpoints like Venom and Mrs. Chang dancing in Las Vegas. The Hippie dad who somehow knew exactly what Venom looked like, even if he’d never seen him and didn’t know his name. And of course, there was the other scientist whose brother was killed by a lightning strike that actually hit her.
To be fair, none of these storylines really should have been explored. The movie was bad, and somehow boring despite its short run time. It’s officially time for Sony to cut bait on whatever it is they thought they were doing with these movies. When Kraven The Hunter hits theaters in December that should be the end of this endeavor and Knull can be shifted to the dustbin of history.
