Warning: This article contains spoilers for Spider-Man: No Way Home
Spider-Man: No Way Home is finally here. The third film in Tom Holland’s tenure as the famed web-slinger sees Peter Parker grappling with a monumental issue: his secret identity has been revealed, and many people no longer see him as a hero thanks to Mysterio’s carefully laid plot to frame him in Far From Home. Peter seeks out help from Doctor Strange, but the stakes only end up growing higher and more dangerous than he could have ever imagined.
Following two and a half hours of what will most certainly be regarded as one of Marvel Studios’ most exciting, advantageous, and satisfying endeavors to date, audiences were treated to two credits scenes.
To understand the mid-credits scene, we first need to circle back to another film released a couple of months ago — Venom: There Let There Be Carnage.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage‘s credits scene depicts Eddie and Venom having a conversation about the latter’s 80 billion light-years of hive knowledge across universes. When Venom offers to give Eddie a taste of what the symbiotes have experienced, the room suddenly begins to go fuzzy. Without warning, their shoddy accommodations suddenly transform into a far nicer hotel room. Clueless as to where they are, Venom assures Eddie that it wasn’t him. Eddie turns to look at the TV screen, which is playing the Daily Bugle news segment where J. Jonah Jameson reveals Spider-Man’s true identity.
There was no explanation for how Eddie and Venom had found themselves in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Earth-199999, but audiences were left excitedly speculating over what this all could mean. While Tom Holland’s Spider-Man calls the MCU home, Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock and his symbiote pal Venom hail from Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. So what exactly did Marvel Studios and Sony have up their sleeves?
No Way Home‘s mid-credits scene picks back up shortly after where the Let There Be Carnage scene left off. We see Eddie sitting at a bar across from a bartender portrayed by Cristo Fernández (cue the Ted Lasso fans saying, “Dani Rojas! Football is life!” under their breaths in the theater). Eddie is beside himself as he learns about the various superheroes that the MCU has to offer, and Venom sounds less than impressed when he hears about the big purple guy who likes gems. Clearly wanting more information, Eddie decides that he wants to go have a chat with Peter Parker in New York. However, before he can do so, Doctor Strange’s spell kicks in and he’s sent back to his own universe.
It initially appeared that perhaps Eddie and Venom’s presence in the MCU was just a quick cameo to further add to the excitement of the film, but something very important was left behind on top of the bar: a tiny piece of Venom.
Sony and Marvel Studios knocked it out of the park with No Way Home, crafting an unbelievably epic crossover with iconic villains from Sony’s Spider-Verse and two people that we’ve all been anxiously waiting to see slinging webs on the big screen again — Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. So taking all of that into consideration, it’s not unreasonable to assume that the alien symbiote may now be slated for a future appearance (outside of a credits scene) in the MCU as well.
It remains to be seen if this means that the remaining piece of Venom will find a new host in the MCU, and whether or not this will have any further connections to the character of Eddie Brock and/or actor Tom Hardy. While it’s incredibly difficult to imagine anyone else being able to play Eddie and Venom to the absolute perfection that Hardy does, the idea of seeing Spider-Man battle it out with his comic nemesis in the world of the MCU is very tempting, to say the least.
The post-credits scene that later followed included another exciting surprise: the first official teaser for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which is due to hit theaters next May.
Spider-Man: No Way Home is now playing in theaters. Stay tuned for our review!
