Venom 4 may not be in the cards for a release from Sony Pictures after its initial trilogy for the antihero.
While Venom: The Last Dance earned mixed reviews upon its debut, it finished as the lowest-grossing film of the trilogy at the box office by grossing under $500 million globally. Thankfully, it became Sony's most successful project in years after the studio bombed with movies like Morbius and Madame Web.
Since Venom 3's release, Sony has taken things much slower in terms of releasing Spider-Man-adjacent projects, particularly considering the backlash most of them have received in recent years.
How the End of Venom 3 Sets Up Sony's Marvel Future
The final moments of 2024's Venom: The Last Dance showed Venom meeting his end after sacrificing himself to defeat the Xenophages and save Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock.
Speaking with Inverse, director Kelly Marcel addressed why that decision was made to close out the Venom trilogy.
Marcel made it clear that she and the team "wanted an epic conclusion" to the trilogy with "epic landscapes and scenery" that allowed for new interactions between characters:
"We wanted an epic conclusion. And the only way to do that is to get out into epic landscapes and scenery and have them meet other people."
She also discussed Andy Serkis' introduction as Knull, noting that Venom 3 was supposed to be "just the beginning for the King in Black:"
"It's just an introduction to Knull. It's just the beginning for the King in Black. We definitely wanted to end our trilogy but leave room for there to be other spinoffs — and definitely room for Knull to now go out there and shine."
Marcel also spoke with IGN about the future of this franchise, explaining how there are "many, many more symbiote stories" and how "one movie could never do justice to Knull:"
"As the fans know there are many, many more symbiote stories — the universe is wide and rich, and one movie could never do justice to Knull. Beyond this trilogy, there are more stories to explore – God is coming."
Will There Be a Venom 4?
Taking everything into consideration, Sony Pictures greenlighting Venom 4 seems to be a long shot at best after seeing the lukewarm financial and critical results from Venom 3.
Also important to remember is a report released after the release of Kraven the Hunter, noting it would be the final Spider-Man spin-off from Sony for the foreseeable future. For now, the studio appears to be focused most heavily on the fourth Spider-Man film being released in the MCU in 2026.
While Venom 3 was not the worst outing in Sony's Spider-Man Universe, the franchise as a whole simply has more than its fair share of movies considered to be flops. Madame Web and Morbius alone lost the studio huge amounts of money and did plenty to sour fan support for Sony for the foreseeable future.
Additionally, with Venom having the most successful franchise in this universe, it now seems to be at a natural stopping point thanks to Venom's death in the third movie. Whether the character will eventually come back in a different form is still a mystery, but for now, Sony seems to be moving in a different direction.
Venom: The Last Dance is now streaming on Netflix.
