The Venom movies may not be critical darlings, but they certainly have a respectable fanbase all their own. 2018’s Venom introduced us to Tom Hardy’s crusading reporter-turned-symbiotic superhero Eddie Brock. 2021’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage brought one of the Marvel Universe’s greatest rivalries into live-action. And now, in
Why didn’t Spider-Man and Venom ever directly cross paths in these movies? Why did Sony set about the impossible challenge of establishing Venom without the hero partly responsible for his creation? And is there still hope for Spidey and Venom to meet in a future movie? Let’s take a deeper dive into the biggest missed opportunity in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe.
Sony’s Spider-Man Universe and the MCU
The Venom movies may not have ever included Spider-Man (outside of Let There Be Carnage’s post-credits scene, of course, which doesn’t really count), but that absence wasn’t due to a lack of desire. Hardy made it clear as recently as New York Comic-Con 2024 that he’s ready and willing to fight Spider-Man at any time. At a panel for Venom: The Last Dance, Hardy responded to a fan question by declaring, “I want to fight Spider-Man. I want to fight Spider-Man right now.”
Unfortunately, it’s never been that simple. Sony and Marvel currently share the cinematic rights to the Spider-Man franchise. Essentially, Marvel has been allowed to use Tom Holland’s Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Sony co-produces the solo Spider-Man movies. At the same time, Sony is free to develop its own cinematic universe, dubbed Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, but the studio seemingly can’t use Holland’s Spider-Man in those movies. To date, the most we’ve seen of Spidey in these movies is a quick glimpse of Peter Parker’s birth in 2024’s Madame Web.
The relationship between Sony and Marvel has been nothing if not tense. There was a point in 2019 when it appeared that the relationship might break down and Sony might pull Holland’s Spider-Man out of the MCU altogether. Had that happened, we might actually have seen Hardy’s Venom and Holland’s Spider-Man team up by now. But the two studios reached a new deal, and so these twin cinematic universes have continued on as before.
The result is that Sony’s Spider-Man Universe continues to be the most ironically named cinematic universe in Hollywood. This is a universe where characters like Venom, Jared Leto’s Morbius and now Michael Keaton’s Vulture coexist, but there’s no indication that Spider-Man is swinging…