Although Sony’s Spider-Man Universe recently hit a snag with El Muerto being taken off the calendar, there are still various other projects to look forward to from this franchise, including Venom 3. While the threequel doesn’t have a specific release date yet, principal photography has officially kicked off, and Tom Hardy, the actor behind Eddie Brock and his symbiote partner, has shared an intense first look at it, complete with an intriguing tie to Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Remember how the Venom: Let There Be Carnage mid-credits scene saw Eddie and Venom being transported to the MCU, and then in Spider-Man: No Way Home’s mid-credits scene, they were sent back to their universe? Well, you’ll want to take a look at photo Hardy shared on Instagram to see if there’s anything familiar about his wardrobe.
Hardy making that ferocious expression in front of a mural of a dog will obviously be what draws the eye first, but as one will see when looking more closely, he’s wearing the same shirt Eddie had on when he was hopping back and forth between realities. And since Hardy included “V3” in his short, primarily emoji-filled caption, this indicates this is from Venom 3 rather than his time on Venom: Let There Be Carnage or Spider-Man: No Way Home. As such, we can infer that Venom 3 will either begin immediately after No Way Home, or we’ll at least flash back to when he was returned to his home universe.
While No Way Home provided a platform for Tom Holland’s Peter Parker to team up with his Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield-played counterparts to deal with villains like Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin and Jamie Foxx’s Electro, Tom Hardy’s Venom sat out that excitement. Instead, he continued hanging out in Mexico and got a primer on the MCU from Ted Lasso’s Cristo Fernández, and he’d intended to go to New York to see Spider-Man. Instead, Eddie and his gooey friend were transported back home, although a piece of the symbiote was left behind in the MCU. Because of that, it’s unclear if Holland’s Spidey and Hardy’s Venom will ever come face to face, or if Marvel Studios will use this symbiote fragment to introduce its own Venom someday.
Either way, Venom 3 is keeping the film series going that launched Sony’s Spider-Man Universe in 2018. No plot details have been revealed yet, but so far Tom Hardy is joined by Juno Temple, another Ted Lasso alum, and Chiwetel Ejiofor, who played Mordo in the Doctor Strange movies. Behind the scenes, after writing the first two Venom movies, Kelly Marcel is both directing and continuing her scripting duties. The threequel is currently rolling cameras in Cartagena, Spain, and filming is also expected to take place in London, England.
Venom 3 is currently slated to come out sometime in October 2024, and once it’s firmly placed on the 2024 movie release schedule, we’ll let you know. In the meantime, Disney+ subscribers can stream Venom, and both Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Spider-Man: No Way Home can be viewed with a Starz add-on to your Hulu subscription.