Spider-Man Will Meet Venom, Eventually, Says Venom 2 Director Andy Serkis

It’s hard to imagine Venom without Spider-Man, but so far the two haven’t met in either of their modern cinematic incarnations. But it’s only a matter of time, said Venom 2 director Andy Serkis when talking to IGN.

“Everyone wants to know when Venom is going to meet Spider-Man,” Serkis said. “Personally, it’s not going to happen. I’m kidding. It’s going to happen, the question is when. We don’t want to rush it.”

There are complications here, of course. In the comic books, Spider-Man is the first one to wear the alien symbiote that would eventually become known as Venom. Peter Parker first found the suit in 1984 during the Secret Wars storyline, and for a while wore it as his primary suit before it began to amplify his negative feelings and change him. He eventually un-bonded himself from the suit, at which point it bonded with Eddie Brock, a rival photographer and reporter. With both Brock and the symbiote feeling slighted by Peter, it’s easy to see where their adversarial nature would come from. Though Venom would eventually become an anti-hero in the Marvel universe, the two were enemies for a long time.

In the films, though, there’s no equivalent to the mirror relationship from the comics. Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock is a grown man who lives in San Francisco (where Venom relocates in the comics after making tentative peace with Spider-Man); Tom Holland’s Spider-Man is a teenager still in high school whose arc seems to lean more toward the later scientific careers Peter would take on rather than his earlier career as a reporter for the Daily Bugle. Peter has no connection to the symbiote, nor to Brock, and none of the three have ever met.

Further, Venom is thus far very much the anti-hero he would later become–not the outright villain he began as. Maximum Carnage, the story that acts as inspiration for the upcoming Venom: Let There Be Carnage, is a catalyst for Venom’s shift and the first time the two work together.

With those differences in mind, it’s impossible to say how the two characters would meet in their current incarnations, or how the writers would make sense of it. With Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Spider-Man: No Way Home both coming this year, the Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters is expanding, and it’s not completely impossible that the two could meet through Spider-Man’s multiversal adventure.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage hits theaters in just two weeks, on October 1, with a PG-13 rating. Spider-Man: No Way Home is currently set to hit theaters on December 17, and will formally introduce the multiverse to the Marvel Cinematic Universe after a preview in the Loki Disney+ series.