Eddie Brock might be a hugely popular character in his own right, but he’ll always be intrinsically linked to the Spider-Man mythos, with both the symbiote and its future human host having debuted in issues of the web-slinger’s comic book run back in the 1980s. Indeed, blockbuster sequel Venom: Let There Be Carnage is finally coming to theaters in September after a lengthy delay, and Sony boss Sanford Panitch has already been teasing a potential crossover with Tom Holland’s Marvel Cinematic Universe fan favorite.
Michael Keaton’s surprise appearance at the end of the first Morbius trailer hinted that Sony’s own shared franchise will be blurring the lines between the two superhero properties, and now Let There Be Carnage director Andy Serkis has teased in a new interview that more Spider-Man villains could potentially be showing up when Tom Hardy returns to our screens in just a few months.
“This lovely little abode [Ravencroft Institute] is of course well-known to fans. I’m not going to say too much about it, but of course, it houses some of the world’s greatest supervillains. We get another slightly different entry point into this strange place which of course links up to other Marvel universe characters, particularly Spider-Man stories, of course. But again, without giving too much away.”
Michelle Williams’ Anne Weying, Naomie Harris’ Frances Barrison and Woody Harrelson’s Cletus Kasady are all playing familiar comic book figures who debuted in the pages of Spider-Man comics before assuming their alter egos as She-Venom, Shriek and Carnage respectively, and given that Sony own the rights to almost the entire wall-crawling back catalogue, virtually every bad guy to show up in a Venom, or any Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters film for that matter, could be broadly labeled as a Spidey villain.
So, it sounds as though the scenes set in and around the Ravencroft Institute might be full of Easter Eggs and references for fans to pick up on that could tease the direction of the SPUMC in the future, with Venom: Let There Be Carnage poised to lay some serious groundwork.