In an odd move for any film, in the weeks leading up to the release of Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Sony put a lot of effort into marketing the movie’s post-credits scene specifically. Marvel movies are, of course, no strangers to including exciting material throughout a film’s credits, but generally, the movie itself is what studios advertise. While it may have been one of the worst-kept secrets around, the post-credits scene does have major implications for future Marvel projects. This article goes into detail on the Venom 2 post-credits scene (technically, it’s a mid-credits scene) and why it caused such a stir. As should be obvious, there are MAJOR SPOILERS below.
***SPOILER WARNING!***
After the events of Let There Be Carnage, Eddie and Venom are lying low and hiding out in some hotel room watching a soap opera. This leads Eddie to ask Venom if he’s been hiding stuff from him. Venom gets a bit ominous and suggests if he told him everything, it would blow his mind. “80 billion years of hive knowledge, across universes, would explode your tiny little brain.” He then offers to give Eddie a taste of “the smallest fraction of things” symbiotes have experienced.
Just as Venom starts to do this, something that can be best described as an almost earthquake-like happens. A bright light shines into the room and the entire place seems to phase in and out and alter itself in a dramatic, jarring fashion. Once it stops, the two are in a similar but differently-colored hotel room and with all new furniture. A man then steps out of the bathroom and asks Eddie why he’s in the man’s hotel room.
We see that both Venom and Eddie are completely confused. Venom then tells Eddie that “it wasn’t me.” The next part is where people go crazy. J.K. Simmons’ J. Jonah Jameson, last seen in Spider-Man: Far From Home, reporting from his Daily Bugle show on the TV. It’s the same information we heard him give us before–Spider-Man is a murderer named Peter Parker. It’s not just any Peter Parker, though, and Tom Holland’s maskless Spider-Man is shown on screen. Venom gets close to the screen, says “this guy…,” and then licks the screen.
There’s obviously a lot that can be read into this scene. It creates countless questions with essentially no answers. What we do know, most likely, is that Eddie and Venom apparently found their way into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While the MCU opened its own multiverse with Loki’s finale and is exploring it more in What If… ?, this is the first time that any Sony-owned character — that didn’t debut in the MCU itself alongside Holland’s Spider-Man — has been confirmed to exist within the MCU.
It’s also the first official live-action multiverse “jump” of the MCU, if that is indeed what happened. It certainly raises a lot of questions over the mechanics of multiversal travel considering how random, unintentional and yet relatively smooth it seemed. With Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness on the horizon, it will be interesting to see how this squares with depictions of the multiverse in those films.
Marvel Studios and Sony deciding to, at least in part, cohabitate in the same universe may have a huge impact on the MCU going forward. If the door is open, Sony could bring more of its Spider-Man properties in–including Jared Leto’s Morbius, Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Kraven the Hunter, and Olivia Wilde’s Spider-Woman project. The Morbius teaser trailer that dropped in January 2020 include details suggesting it could potentially have tie-ins to the MCU.
But will we see Venom again in the MCU anytime soon? Venom: Let There Be Carnage director Andy Serkis thinks so. He recently said that Venom and Spider-Man would “of course” meet at some point. But he also hinted it might not be as soon as the post-credits scene would suggest:
Look, it depends when you want to get there, and also, what the appetite is. If people want more Venom stories, then, to jump straight to Spider-Man, you could be missing out on so many great supervillain characters in between now and then. So, in a way, by rushing to it, you might be closing the door.
Andy Serkis
The Venom 2 post-credits definitely sent fans into a spiral of excitement and speculation. It seems clear that Sony and Marvel Studios have the intention to play nice together in the near future. This, of course, is a big win for both studios. The Marvel Cinematic Multiverse gets to be a bit more comprehensive, and Spidey fans get to see his world expand. As to the potential, and likely, Venom and Spider-Man meet-and-greet, though, people might need to be a little patient.
Source: GQ
