Love or hate the Venom franchise (and the majority of comic book fans do seem to fall into the latter category), there's no denying it's been a box office hit for Sony Pictures.
Now, the trilogy is set to conclude with next month's Venom: The Last Dance. The threequel will arrive in U.S. theaters on October 25 but it's been confirmed today that it will arrive in China on October 23. Based on past experience, it will take mere hours for spoilers and full bootleg copies to flood the internet.
Why is the latest Venom movie heading to the Middle Kingdom a little earlier than everywhere else? Well, in 2018, Venom grossed $270 million there, which was around a third of its $856 million global cume. Venom: Let There Be Carnage, released in the closing months of the pandemic, wasn't released there (at the time, pretty much no Hollywood blockbusters were).
We're intrigued to see where this third chapter takes us, especially as it appears to be a larger-scale story which finally sheds some light on Venom's alien history. Once again, though, we're not expecting Spider-Man to swing into frame.
Talking about the threequel, Tom Hardy recently said, "By the third one, we’ve been given so much creative support to do - to push it. It’s a much wider piece and there’s much more love - not that there was not love in the last ones. We’ve been allowed to put more of our ideas into it, and I’m really excited to see how they land. I think you got to swing for the fences with these things."
He added, "It’s the last one, and we want to go out with a bang, and lay the foundations for optionality and possibilities because it’s been such a great ride. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working within that field and remit of a big film with big ideas, and a lot of people looking to you to back that up."
A new trailer for Venom: The Last Dance will be released on Thursday. Check out a teaser for that below along with a Chinese poster.
In Venom: The Last Dance, Tom Hardy returns as Venom, one of Marvel's greatest and most complex characters, for the final film in the trilogy. Eddie and Venom are on the run. Hunted by both of their worlds and with the net closing in, the duo are forced into a devastating decision that will bring the curtains down on Venom and Eddie's last dance.
The movie stars Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Peggy Lu, Alanna Ubach, Stephen Graham, and Rhys Ifans. Kelly Marcel directs from a screenplay she wrote, based on a story by Hardy and Marcel. The film is produced by Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach, Amy Pascal, Kelly Marcel, Tom Hardy and Hutch Parker.
Venom: The Last Dance will be released in theaters on October 25.