Venom: Let There Be Carnage has a mid-credits scene, and it’s a pretty big deal. The sequel to 2018’s surprise superhero hit starring Tom Hardy and Tom Hardy, but in a slightly deeper voice, takes a mighty swing with its sequel bait in a way that is both sort of surprising and yet not entirely unexpected. But naturally, for anything cinematic and related to Marvel, the act of getting there was more complicated than it should be. Odds are you already have an inkling of what it is, but just in case.
After vanquishing Carnage (Woody Harrelson), Eddie and Venom are taking a breather, watching a Spanish soap opera in a hotel as Eddie asks if his gooey friend is keeping any secrets. Venom casually reveals that as a symbiote, he’s got collective hive mind knowledge from his people that spans thousands of universes and…realities and that Eddie’s mind couldn’t handle the experience.
That’s not something you just say without backing it up, though, so Venom decides to do Eddie a solid and give a demonstration. But before that can even happen, everything shifts around them and they’re in a completely different hotel room. And on the TV, they watch as J. Jonah Jameson reveals Spider-Man’s identity as Peter Parker in the final moments of Spider-Man: Far From Home. Then Venom curiously growls, “That guy…” and licks the TV with Peter’s face on it. (Gross.)
Yeah, so Venom is now in the MCU, and he’s got his teeth set on Peter. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, director Andy Serkis revealed that the wall-crawler’s status in the film itself was all over the place, even before he signed on. “There were moments where Spider-Man was going to be in the story, potentially, and then he wasn’t…It couldn’t have been more flux-y if you tried,” he laughed.