Venom: The Last Dance introduced Marvel’s god of the symbiotes, Knull, into Sony’s Spider-Man Universe franchise – but is that as far as the villain’s reach goes? Marvel fans know that Knull is a “big bad” in the biggest sense – a character that was teased in years of Venom comic storylines before finally escaping his prison and launching a massive symbiote invasion of Earth, which required the combined efforts of Marvel’s earthbound and cosmic heroes to defeat. With that kind of precedence, fans wonder if the onscreen version of Knull will be a similar threat – not only to Sony’s Spider-Man Universe but to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as well.
Does Knull Already Know About the MCU?
In Venom: The Last Dance it’s established that there is a connection between Knull and all of his symbiote “children,” to the point that the symbiote and Eddie Brock can’t access their full Venom form, lest they immediately signal their position to Knull. That detail could be key to (finally) connecting the Venom franchise with the MCU.
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When Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Spider-Man: No Way Home were both released in 2021, they set up an exciting story arc that saw Eddie Brock/Venom (Tom Hardy) transported from the SSU to the MCU. Unfortunately, nothing really came of that reality-hopping event: Venom never showed up for the fight in No Way Home, and got snatched back to his home universe in The Last Dance. However, the post-credits scene of No Way Home made it clear that Venom left a little piece of himself behind on Earth-616, teeing up the MCU to have its own symbiote saga. If Knull is connected to all symbiotes, he presumably can sense the piece of Venom that exists in another reality – especially if that small bit of symbiote residue eventually bonds with a host and becomes a whole new Venom. Once that happens, Knull will have a roadmap across realities, to the MCU.
Will Spider-Man 4 Feature Knull?
The theory that Knull could be headed for the MCU has only been exacerbated by the recent news about Spider-Man 4:
We now know that Spider-Man 4 will be released in July of 2026, after Avengers: Doomsday (May 2026) but before Avengers: Secret Wars (May 2027). That has raised serious questions about how Tom Holland’s Peter Parker will react to seeing a Doctor Doom variant of his mentor Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), and what kind of peril he’ll find himself in.
Based on Marvel’s history of Secret Wars stories, it’s a safe bet that Avengers: Doomsday will feature an event that finally fractures the Marvel Multiverse, with Doom having the mix of science and sorcery required to pull together a “Battleworld,” i.e. a Frankenstein mix of fragments from different realities, all mashed together as the last bastion of existence. It’s been a popular theory that the MCU heroes who survive Doomsday will be stranded in that Battleworld arena, where they will have to find each other and re-assemble, to reboot the multiverse (or the sacred timeline of the MCU) and soft-reboot the franchise with a new collection of characters.
That leaves Spider-Man 4 as the only currently confirmed MCU project that could be set in the Battleworld reality. If that’s the case, the realities of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe and the MCU could finally overlap – meaning that Knull, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, and the Venom symbiote could all end up in the same film, without needing to do a whole lot of explaining.
These Marvel movie franchises – Marvel Studios, Sony, Fox-Marvel – have become too convoluted for most fans to follow – and yet, the end of the Marvel Multiverse Saga may let them all combine their strengths. Sony has a promising big bad, but no marquee character to battle him; Marvel’s Spider-Man franchise is looking for a blockbuster-sized villain to take on in his next film while offering fans the novelty of something like a black-suit-Spider-Man story in the MCU. Don’t be surprised to see it happen.
Venom: The Last Dance in now in theaters.