Venom 2 Scrapped Story Plans Pit Spider-Man vs. Venom in Let There Be Carnage

Warning: this story contains spoilers for Venom: Let There Be Carnage. Sony Pictures discussed having Spider-Man (Tom Holland) swing into the "Venom-verse" in an ultimately unused story idea for the Venom sequel, director Andy Serkis reveals. Venom 2 is instead a brawl between human hosts Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson), both bonded to archfoe alien symbiotes: the lethal protector, Venom, and the crazed killer Carnage. Spoiler warning for the mid-credits scene. But worlds collide when Eddie and Venom somehow hop from Sony's Spider-Man Universe into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, giving Venom a taste for an unmasked Peter Parker (Holland). 

"[The mid-credits scene was] 100 percent in flux, yeah. It couldn't have been more in flux-y if you tried," Serkis told The Hollywood Reporter. "Yeah, of course, it was something that they talked about from before I even came on to the movie. There were moments where he [Spider-Man] was going to be in the story, potentially, and then he wasn't."

Ultimately, Serkis said, "We decided that we wanted to really examine the Venom-verse first. So as we were going through principal photography, the inevitable discussions had to be had, but it wasn't until very, very late on that we reached the precise notion of the teaser that we wanted to lay in there." 

READ: Venom 2 Credits Scene Sets Up Marvel Multiverse Crossover

The scene in question sees Eddie and Venom hiding out in a hotel room when the symbiote warns his human host that "80 billion light-years of hive knowledge across universes would explode your tiny little brain." Giving Eddie just a taste of "the smallest fraction of the things we symbiotes have experienced," a boom of bright light ends with the pair transported somewhere else — as if by magic. 

"It wasn't me," says the symbiote as a Daily Bugle pundit J. Jonah Jameson's (J.K. Simmons) live exclusive exposes Parker as the "spider menace" who murdered Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) in Spider-Man: Far From Home. Venom overtakes his host body and licks the broadcast of a fugitive Spidey, seemingly recognizing "that guy." (Read the detailed description here.) 

In Spider-Man: No Way Home, out December 17, a spell gone awry cast by Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) could explain the universe-uniting link bringing Venom from the SSU into the MCU. In a separate interview with Deadline, Serkis seemed to hint at a Venom versus Spider-Man crossover in a potential Venom 3 or a Spider-Man 4. 

"There's an arc to this obviously," said Serkis. "We weren't thinking of individual movies, but thinking about eventually where it's going to go...Take us a way down the line, but this leaves room for other explorations in the Venom-verse. There are other interesting characters that Venom can come against before he comes up against Spider-Man."

Starring Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, Naomie Harris, Reid Scott, Stephen Graham, and Woody Harrelson, Venom: Let There Be Carnage is now playing exclusively in theaters.