Tamal Kundu
Sony’s ‘Venom’ franchise has never lacked shock value. The film series has freely explored the violent and gory adventures of its titular antihero (Tom Hardy) with a brand of gleeful panache quite rare in the superhero genre. That trend continues in ‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage’ with the usage of Woody Harrelson’s Cletus Kasady/Carnage and Naomie Harris’ Frances Barrison/Shriek in the ‘Venom’ universe.
In the mid-credits scene of the first movie, the audience is introduced to Kasady, whom Hardy’s Eddie Brock meets at the former’s prison cell. Before the scene concludes, Kasady declares that there will be carnage when he gets out. If you are wondering whether ‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage’ has any post-credits scene, this is what you need to know. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Does Venom: Let There Be Carnage Have an End-Credits Scene?
Yes, ‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage’ has a post-credits scene. And it is such an important one that it is going to bring radical changes to franchise filmmaking. After Venom devours Kasady/Carnage following the climactic battle, Detective Mulligan (Stephen Graham) tries to arrest Brock, but the latter evades capture by escaping to a remote island with Venom. The Symbiote and the human seem to find a modicum of peace there. Venom satiates its hunger on small animals found on the island. And as there is no one else there to see them, they can change between the two forms without a care in the world.
In the post-credits scene, Eddie and Venom watch a telenovela-type show on TV in their hut. Venom declares that he loves the show before observing that the feelings of one of the characters are not being validated, prompting Eddie to reply that the character shouldn’t have kept such a secret. Venom then almost solemnly says that everyone has a past. This seems to pique Eddie’s interest, and he asks the Symbiote whether the latter is keeping secrets from him.
This question seems to shift Venom’s mood. It offhandedly tells Eddie that 80 billion light-years of hive knowledge across universes will explode Eddie’s brain. When Eddie expresses his confusion, Venom decides to give him a small taste of what it knows. Suddenly, the reality seems to shift, and they are in a luxurious room instead of their hut. Both Eddie and Venom are surprised by what happened, as it seems even the latter wasn’t expecting something like this to occur.
On TV, the telenovela has been replaced by J. Jonah Jameson’s (J. K. Simmons) breaking news about MCU’s Spider-Man’s secret identity as Peter Parker (Tom Holland), which takes place during the mid-credits scene of ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home.’ And through that one compelling scene, the ‘Venom’ universe is linked to the MCU. As Peter’s face appears on the TV, Venom licks the screen. The post-credits scene ends with a semi-nude man walking out of the bathroom and asking a transformed Eddie what he is doing in his room.
It’s possible that Venom opening its mind to Eddie coincides with He Who Remains’ death in ‘Loki.’ So, when Venom lets Eddie see the hive’s memories from across universes, it and Eddie end up traveling to one of those universes. With the way Venom responds to Peter, it seems that it knows him. As Peter and the Venom of his universe haven’t encountered each other yet, Venom is probably reacting to the memories of the Venom from Sam Raimi’s universe, where Venom becomes Spider-Man’s suit until Peter realizes how it is changing him and discards it.
Hardy’s Venom and Holland’s Spider-Man are seemingly bound to run into each other in future MCU projects. However, it will also be interesting to see how Tobey Maguire’s (if rumors of his appearance in ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ are true) Spider-Man responds to seeing that a version of Eddie Brock has managed to form a positive and harmonious relationship with the Symbiote.
