Summary

Venom: The Last Dance confirms the major villain Knull's appearance, tying in with the MCU.
Knull's addition provides a strong link to MCU's Thor: Love and Thunder and Spider-Man.
The Last Dance notably aims for an R-rating to potentially bring a more satisfying climax to the trilogy.

Venom: The Last Dance is finally nearing its theatrical release, and the upcoming movie is marking the last leg of its pre-release promotional tour by giving fans confirmation that one major villain that was previously thought to be off the table will be there in full force.

Venom: The Last Dance is the final installment in the Venom franchise, the only successful Spider-Man spinoff that Sony has been able to get off the ground beyond their successful collaboration with Marvel Studios on the Tom Holland-led Spider-Man: Home. With the resounding failures of Morbius and Madame Web, the success of the Venom franchise has become even more critical for the studio, and a third and final film in the now-confirmed trilogy would gain a lot more pressure to succeed. However, because the sequel film Venom: Let There Be Carnage utilized the titular villain in a less than fully-realized PG-13 outing, there was a strong general consensus that Venom: The Last Dance has nothing left to offer Spider-Man fans.

Despite the bleak outlook, the leadup to the release of Venom: The Last Dance while it was initially rumored that Sony might be saving a big Venom villain for a crossover event and leaving them out of the final film in the trilogy, that theory has finally gone up in smoke with the release of the latest trailer for the film. Sony released this final promotional trailer for the upcoming threequel to its official YouTube channel, and fans finally got confirmation of a major inclusion to the film’s worldbuilding with a strong link to the MCU. In the trailer, the Venom symbiote reveals to Eddie that they’ve been found by its creator before confirming that it is indeed Knull, God of the Symbiotes. This revelation is a major one, as Knull is an interdimensional threat that could easily back up the implied threat to the entire world that the trailer seems to present the audience with.

In addition to filling the big shoes of a final trilogy villain, Knull also gives the film a strong connection to the mainline MCU film Thor: Love and Thunder, which saw the inclusion of Gorr the God Butcher, a villain wielding the Necrosword. The god-slaying weapon is central to Gorr’s plot and, in the comics, was created by Knull in addition to the symbiotes. Additionally, new set photos from reshoots seem to imply a potential Spider-Man connection with the Venom franchise, with a rumored appearance by Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man being discussed.

Knull is certainly not a bad choice to end the trilogy on, as the villain is sufficiently powerful and intricately linked to the protagonists via the creation of the symbiotes. The film will have a lot of work to do in terms of actually setting up his motivation for coming after Venom and Eddie, but that’s going to be the easy part. The rumors gave a lot of fans hope that there would be a more substantial crossover between Venom and a Spider-Man project, but it's clear now that Sony intends to pull out all the stops for the threequel. While The Last Dance might be Sony's last safe bet, the company seems to be doing a lot to ensure that Kraven the Hunter can continue that success, including revealing the film's encouraging R-rating.

Prior Venom entries ranked high on the list of PG movies that needed to be Rated-R, and Venom: The Last Dance might just earn the top spot. While there’s a chance that Sony and Marvel Studios have some sort of long-term plans for Knull possibly crossing over, the decision to introduce a character like Knull with such a limitation on the project could potentially mitigate a lot of that appeal. However, Venom is still Sony’s best franchise, and fans will simply have to keep fingers crossed that The Last Dance brings things to a satisfying climax.