Spider-Man: No Way Home had a couple of surprises up its sleeve, including in its mid-credits scene, which showed how Sam Raimi’s version of Venom could have survived the ending of Spider-Man 3. After its not-so-exciting big screen debut in Spider-Man 3, Venom was given a new chance now in a solo movie, which kicked off Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, and even though it didn’t do well with critics, it was a box office success that led to more stories starring the symbiote and journalist Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy).
The character connecting Sony’s Spider-Man Universe and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is Spider-Man (Tom Holland), and these universes, along with those of Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy and Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man movies, were confirmed to exist in the same multiverse in Spider-Man: No Way Home. The MCU’s third Spider-Man movie brought villains from Raimi and Webb’s universes into the MCU, and it raised questions about other antagonists, such as Raimi’s Venom, more so after the mid-credits scene of No Way Home showed how easy it could have been for the symbiote to survive.
How Venom Could’ve Survived Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3?
In order to put an end to the potentially disastrous multiversal chaos unleashed by Spider-Man and Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) in No Way Home, they agreed to cast a spell that would make everyone forget Peter Parker, and so the villains and Peter’s variants were sent back to their respective universes. No Way Home’s mid-credits scene showed that among the characters from other universes brought to the MCU were Tom Hardy’s Eddie and Venom, and to the surprise of the audience, the symbiote left a piece of itself in the MCU while the rest of it and Eddie were sent back to their universe – and this shows that Spider-Man 3’s Venom could have survived by leaving a piece of itself behind.
Spider-Man 3 infamously featured three different villains, among those Venom, who Sam Raimi has explained didn’t want to add to the movie but was forced to. Spider-Man 3, then, saw Eddie Brock (Topher Grace) bonding with Venom, with the symbiote also bonding with Peter Parker for a while, and at the end, Spider-Man assembled a perimeter of metal pipes to create a sonic attack in order to weaken Venom. This allowed Spider-Man to separate Eddie and the symbiote, so he activated a pumpkin bomb and threw it at the hostless symbiote, with Eddie jumping to save it and both being killed in the explosion. However, the comics and No Way Home have seen the symbiote leaving a piece of itself behind, so the same could have happened to Raimi’s Venom and the symbiote could still be alive, somewhere.
Spider-Man 3’s Venom Can’t Return Now Thanks To No Way Home
If Raimi’s Venom survived the explosion by leaving a piece of itself behind, this version of the symbiote can’t return now thanks to the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home. Thanks to Hardy’s Eddie and Venom, the MCU now has a piece of the symbiote that can potentially bond with Peter Parker in Spider-Man 4 and beyond, but because of this, Spider-Man 3’s Venom can’t return as there’s already a version of it in the MCU. The only way Raimi’s version of the symbiote could return is in a fourth Spider-Man movie from Tobey Maguire’s universe, but it would have a lot of explaining to do as over a decade has passed since the events of Spider-Man 3.