With production on Marvel Studios and Sony’s Spider-Man 4 finally set to get underway in 2025, buzz around the project has been steadily growing over the past several months. Though the project has been in development since before Spider-Man: No Way Home hit theaters in 2022 and rumors about its potential plot have been popping up for almost as long, it wasn’t until Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings director Destin Daniel Cretton boarded the project following a rumored script overhaul that the wildest and most exciting rumors started to fly.
Once widely believed to be a team-up film featuring Spidey, Daredevil and other street-level heroes taking on Wilson Fisk, the latest word on the film’s script, by Spidey vets Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, is that it will bring Sony’s Spidey-adjacent universe’s biggest star into the MCU and, along with him, one of the most terrifying villains to hit the pages of Marvel Comics in the last decade: Knull, the King in Black. Though there’s no confirmation of exactly what the actual plan is for Spider-Man 4, reports of screenings of Sony’s Venom: The Last Dance indicate that the film may indeed set up the prospects of an unprecedented studio crossover in which Tom Hardy‘s Eddie Brock finds himself fully integrated into the MCU and not just visiting for a short-term bender in Mexico. As the release date of Sony’s third and final installment in the Venom franchise draws near, Hardy was asked about the recent rumors and his response may be quite telling.
When asked by a reporter what the odds of Spider-Man showing up in Venom: The Last Dance might be, Hardy slyly responded by saying, “You know…you know, there are always possibilities. I couldn’t possibly say anything because this is the last movie.” Before moving on, Hardy added, “Yeah, I would love that.” As not only the star of the Venom franchise but also a writer and producer on The Last Dance, Hardy is in a unique position to know exactly what those possibilities are for this film and beyond.
This is just the beginning for Knull. We’re in spoiler territory now and we hope some of the fun of watching this movie is not knowing what will happen, but trust me, we know full well how important Knull is to the fans, so just as we laid a foundation for Venom, we hope we are doing the same for Knull.
–Venom: The Last Dance director Kelly Marcel
Despite Sony putting a bow on the Venom franchise in The Last Dance, director Kelly Marcel recently confirmed that Knull’s story is just beginning. However, with the two most popular symbiote (Venom and Carnage) apparently off the board, it would seem foolish–even for Sony–to try to move forward with a symbiote-centric story. But according to Marcel, “One movie could never do justice to Knull,” which means that somehow, someway, there’s more story to tell. With a piece of the Venom symbiote already on Earth-616 and Hardy’s Brock reportedly headed back to the MCU’s Sacred Timeline, it’s easy to draw the conclusion the the King in Black will find his way there as well.
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