Last year, Tom Hardy’s time as Venom apparently came to an end in the third movie, Venom: The Last Dance, without a promised showdown between the actor and Tom Holland, the MCU’s Spider-Man. For years, Sony teased a potential meeting and setup the battle of the Toms, but it never came to pass. Now, Hardy has shared a partial explanation why.
Via Variety, Hardy appeared on The Discourse Podcast and declined to specifically say why his character never met Holland’s Spidey. However, he did appear to agree with the host’s suggestion that “studio politics” ultimately killed it.
“We got close,” said Hardy. “We got as close as I could possibly imagine getting, apart from doing a film together, which I would have loved to have done because that just means so much fun… Fundamentally, for me, [a Spider-Man/Venom crossover] would be for the kids. Because, you know, as much as adults love superhero films, as you can tell by the box office when they’re successful, I think I’m constantly reminded by children how important these characters are. And they don’t know why their favorite characters aren’t in films together.”
The reason why Spider-Man and Venom aren’t easily able to share the screen is because Sony and Marvel reached a deal in 2015 that allowed the MCU to have its own Spider-Man. Sony also agreed to let Marvel produce Spider-Man’s solo movies. Yet Sony also retained the rights for all of Spider-Man’s ancillary characters, including Venom, and the studio still had a desire to make its own MCU with them. That resulted in a string of epic flops that included Morbius, Madame Web, and Kraven the Hunter.
The ending of Spider-Man: No Way Home featured a cameo appearance by Hardy as Eddie Brock/Venom and appeared to set the stage for the long-awaited crossover. Unfortunately, that loose end was seemingly tied off in The Last Dance, and Hardy left the franchise after that film.
