Venom: The Last Dance featured two end-credits scenes. Each has major and obvious implications for the future of Sony’s growing live-action Spider-Verse and its signature symbiote, but the second also teases a tantalizing possibility for the MCU. How can one moment mean so much for two separate franchises? Here’s how Venom: The Last Dance‘s post-credits scene transcends the cinematic superhero multiverse.
What Happened During Venom: The Last Dance‘s Second End-Credits Scene?
The final moment from Venom: The Last Dance took place entirely after the credits ended. It opened on the ruins of Area 51, where Venom and most of his fellow Symbiotes had died days earlier fighting Knull’s xenophages. Apparently amid all the intergalactic alien warfare, the United States government forgot about Cristo Fernández’s bartender. Soldiers had taken him into custody after his encounter with Eddie Brock at the start of the film. He emerged from the underground complex scared and confused before he started running home. As he did, the camera panned over to a cockroach.
As Juno Temple’s Dr. Payne had pointed out, cockroaches survive everything. Apparently so do beloved symbiotes with box office caché. That tough little bug walked towards a flashing broken vial. It was the one we’d seen earlier in the film during Fernández’s first scene in the movie.
That sequence began by replaying the Ted Lasso star’s MCU debut that also marked Tom Hardy’s only appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe so far. They both appeared in a mid-credits scene in Spider-Man: No Way Home. That moment showed Symbrock had also been pulled into Earth-616 by Doctor Strange’s failed spell, even though Eddie had never met Peter Parker or any other Spider-Man.
Before a drunk Eddie could pay his tab, he got pulled back into his own parallel universe. Venom: The Last Dance showed what happened after that. Eddie ended up back in a similar bar where a Variant of the very same bartender worked. (Only this version knew to let his glorious hair down.)
When Eddie and Venom left the Mexican bar in their own world, they also left behind a single coin covered in a glob of Venom’s symbiote goo. That’s exactly what they had also left behind in Earth-616 (sans any money).
What we learned about the nature of Venom’s remnants in The Last Dance is why this end-credits scene is so important to both superhero franchises.
What Does Venom: The Last Dance‘s Post-Credits Scene Mean for Venom and Sony’s Spider-Verse?
When Venom sacrificed himself in a bath of acid, he told Eddie he was only saying goodbye “for now.” It was a curious choice of words that made perfect sense during The Last Dance‘s post-credits scene. When the U.S. military showed up at that Mexican bar, they captured the piece of Venom the symbiote had left behind. Venom’s goodbye indicates the broken vial the cockroach found before the movie ended was the very same one.
Venom’s temporary farewell combined with this sequence indicates he’s not actually gone forever. He lives on in the tiny piece of himself he left on that bar. This is not a Groot-like situation, where a piece of a dead Groot grew into an entirely new, entirely different Groot. That small glob of Venom is the very same Venom we know and love. It’s the same alien that shared a body with Eddie Brock. And if it can make its way to Eddie, Earth will once again have its “greatest champion” as Knull called him. If that happens we could also eventually get a Venom 4. We could also get something even bigger.
Knull promised to bring darkness to the entire galaxy in the film’s other end-credits scene. It set him up to b the major villain in a future Sony live-action Spider-Verse crossover event that feels inevitable. A massive event movie would feel incomplete without Venom and Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock involved. That little cockroach at the end of an otherwise funny scene means they can.
But now that we know a small piece of Venom actually is the exact same Venom we know, that also means he already exists in the MCU.
How Does This Post-Credits Scene Connect to the MCU?
Like Venom: The Last Dance‘s second end-credits scene, Eddie Brock’s only MCU appearance was also entirely humorous until the final moment. After Eddie got pulled back into his own universe Spider-Man: No Way Home showed that he’d left a tiny piece of himself on the bar.
That was exciting enough on its own, as it formally brought symbiotes to Earth-616. But we now know it didn’t just bring any symbiote or even a Venom Variant to that world. It brought Sony’s very same Venom there. Venom, the Venom, exists in the MCU. We just don’t know who he’ll connect there with and what that will do to him. We just know we can’t wait to find out.
For a movie that was supposed to serve as a farewell to Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock and his best alien bud, Venom: The Last Dance ended by showing us the legendary symbiote that starred in three movies is still very much alive in two superhero franchises.