The initial teaser for Venom: The Last Dance highlights Sony’s Spider-Man Universe’s difficulty in developing a unified vision.
Marginal characters such as Morbius and Madame Web found it difficult to maintain their connections to the superhero when Peter Parker was absent from the Sony Spider-Man Universe.
While alluded to possible problems with narrative coherence and the general calibre of Sony’s shared universe, Venom: The Last Dance promises a more chaotic and humorous trip.
The last film of Sony’s Venom film trilogy, which is a part of the studio’s Spider-Man Universe, is Venom: The Last Dance. The film’s debut trailer, which promises silly shenanigans and explosive symbiote action, was just published. This will no doubt attract some audiences, but it also brings attention to some of the persistent problems with Sony’s beleaguered shared universe.
Sony’s live-action use of the Spider-Man licence has not been well received, despite the box office success of the first two Venom films. This is primarily because of their uneven quality and apparent lack of meticulous planning; the third Venom movie may have similar problems. The film is now slated to be the shared universe’s penultimate installment, which might be a godsend in disguise.
The First Trailer for Venom 3 Shows a Crazy and Funny Ending
Venom: The Last Dance’s initial teaser includes a dance routine among other Lethal Protector-themed mayhem. A gang of Mexican gangsters are shown attacking Eddie Brock before he uses the Venom symbiote to take them out violently. Regretfully, after the events of the first two films, the two find themselves back on the run from both other symbiotes from Venom’s homeworld and the authorities who are chasing Brock. There is a tonne of comedy mixed in with all the mayhem, such as Eddie briefly getting back together with Mrs. Chen before Venom dances with her.
This may be part of the issue because it’s essentially more of what viewers have grown to (ironically) enjoy from the series. After Venom: The Last Dance, actor Tom Hardy will not be appearing in any more solo films. This will be the last installment in the series. That being said, there’s no true sense that this is the character’s “last hurrah”; rather, it feels like more of the same. Similarly, there doesn’t appear to be any narrative significance between the other threats and the different symbiotes that are seen in the movie’s trailer. This creates the appearance that the trilogy’s last section is just a disorganised sprinkling of concepts with little sense of purpose. If that were the case, it would be unfortunate, but it isn’t outside the standard for the shared universe in which it is set.
Spider-Man Universe on Sony Has Never Felt Like a Connection
The fictitious shared world that debuted with Venom in 2018 has never truly included Spider-Man, even though it is known as the Sony Spider-Man world. The primary deviation occurred during the Venom: Let There Be Carnage post-credits sequence, whereby Tom Holland’s Spider-Man made an appearance and connected to the events in Spider-Man: No Way Home. The only other instances of genuine connecting tissue between these films are a few lines in the highly criticised 2021 film Morbius. The Venom series is another example of this. Even yet, most of the Spider-Man allusions were eliminated in that film, and the same was most definitely true for the 2024 release of Madame Web. All of these films, with the exception of Venom 2 (which received less positive reviews) were poorly accepted; nevertheless, if the films had some sort of connection, this unfavourable reception might have been overcome.
The question of whether audiences would be interested in this linked universe beyond the different films was never made clear. The less impressive Marvel Cinematic Universe entries until Avengers: Endgame were propelled by some sort of event build-up, but Sony’s Spider-Man Universe never succeeded in a comparable manner. Though it has only been loosely hinted at, it’s possible that a confrontation with Spider-Man or a team-up with the Sinister Six was the intended outcome. This has become even more dubious due to the lack of a unified vision and the inconsistent quality, with Sony’s intentions appearing to shift with every new movie that comes out. That seems to be the case with Venom: The Last Dance, as it appears that the film is a mash-up of several ideas and storylines. This There’s been no indication that the Sony project will be of great quality, yet it might succeed in the end.
This relates to the lack of preparation, as it appears that Sony was working quickly to build what was intended to be the studio’s MCU ripoff. Even while more naturally tying them together would not have made the films better, it might have given viewers a sense of a larger world to immerse themselves in. This would have made Morbius and Madame Web more of a “must-see” because of their association with the Lethal Protector, giving fans of the Venom films a chance to give them a shot. Even better, the individual mentioned in the shared universe’s title serves as the cohesive element that should have bound these films together.
Spider-Man Universe on Sony Was Never Featured Parker Peter
Fans and viewers have been perplexed by the absence of Spider-Man in the Sony Spider-Man Universe, especially because many of the characters who have been employed thus far have Spider-Man as part of their very origin tales. This required a certain amount of rewriting for Venom’s origin story, which now sees him beginning as a vigilante known as “Lethal Protector” rather than as a villain initially opposing Peter Parker then turning into an antihero. Regretfully, this also made me less interested in the films, particularly the ones sans Venom.
The reason the character has been able to lead two films without the Wall-Crawler is because the latter is, at the very least, incredibly popular in his own right. However, it was not the case with the more incidental characters in the Spider-Man mythos, Madame Web and Morbius. One of his less well-known antagonists is Morbius, who gained most of his notoriety from the Spider-Man: The Animated Series cartoon of the 1990s. However, since the 1980s comic books, Madame Web hasn’t been connected to Spider-Man in any way. So, releasing their solo films without any kind of connection to Spider-Man reduced their chances of success—especially because it’s not like Sony couldn’t handle the cards.
Spider-Man and numerous of his associated characters are owned by Sony, and they only share these rights with Marvel Studios for their Marvel Cinematic Universe projects, such Spider-Man: No Way Home. This was seen immediately following the release of Endgame, when Sony broke its connections with Marvel Studios for a short while before reaching a new understanding. To put it another way, Sony can always use Spider-Man in a film, even if it doesn’t revolve around superheroes. Therefore, regardless of what Marvel Studios may have desired, there was no reason for the studio to keep Spider-Man out of the “Sony Spider-Man Universe.”
Naturally, this would have required some central planning for the shared universe, something that Sony evidently lacked beyond just matching Venom and Carnage in the latter’s follow-up film. As the conclusion of a franchise that hasn’t taken off, Venom: The Last Dance might be the second-to-last installment in the shared universe. Perhaps Venom’s farewell dance will also serve as the SSU’s swan song, as nobody can predict what Sony will do following the December release of Kraven the Hunter.
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