Venom: The Last Dance takes a nostalgia trip in final trailer

If you had any doubt that the third Venom movie was indeed going to be The Last Dance, the final trailer is set to Cat Stevens’ “Wild World,” that wistfully nostalgic favorite of dads everywhere. And if you had any doubt Venom is a superhero flick—that would be weird, but if you did have any doubt—the world is facing another apocalyptic-level threat. The marketing for this film, which premieres October 25, really wants to reinforce that the end of this trilogy really is the end. 

Per the synopsis, “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.” This trailer makes it totally explicit: if Eddie (Tom Hardy) and the symbiote stay together, the world won’t be able to survive. (Cue the nostalgia trip of clips from the other Venom adventures!) But they need each other, and promise to stay together “to the end,” no matter that the creepy, anonymous, long-haired extraterrestrial creator of the symbiotes is after them and ready to destroy Earth in the process. 

As we’ve previously discussed, Venom: The Last Dance is way more connected to the Marvel multiverse than the other two installments. A previous trailer revealed the results of that Spider-Man: No Way Home mid-credits scene where Eddie accidentally left a smidge of symbiote behind on Earth-616. Chiwetel Ejiofor, in this universe playing some high-level super-secret military leader, showed up on 616 to take that symbiote away. But there’s another connection to Peter Parker in the form of Rhys Ifans, who played Lizard in the Andrew Garfield-led The Amazing Spider-Man and appeared in No Way Home. Is he, like Eijofor (who also plays 616’s Karl Modo), playing a totally new and separate character? Or is the double casting of Marvel villains intentional, and this is all some sort of multiversal mindfuck? Ifans’ one line doesn’t offer much of a clue, but it is appropriately vague superhero advice: “There comes a time in every man’s life where you have to make a sacrifice.”