Spider-Man: No Way Home's Venom cameo made room for the symbiote to invade to the MCU, but that's not going to help Sony's Spider-Man Universe.

The Venom symbiote having a future in the MCU is good for Tom Holland, but bad for Sony. Not long after the release of Spider-Man: Far From Home in 2019, it looked like Marvel Studios and Sony might be ending their working relationship, casting the web-slinger out of the MCU. There was much dismay among the masses, but thankfully, a new deal was worked out. Since then, the creative marriage between Sony and Marvel has deepened, leading to the celebration of Spider-Man's live-action movie history that is Spider-Man: No Way Home.

This new phase of Marvel and Sony's coexistence was first made clear earlier in 2021, during the post-credits scene for Venom: Let There Be Carnage. In a move that shocked audiences, Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock/Venom was suddenly transported into the MCU. While some hoped this meant he'd play a meaningful role in No Way Home, Venom only appeared in a humorous mid-credits scene. However, said scene did set the stage for something big, as before he was zapped back out of the MCU, Venom left a bit of the black symbiote goo behind.

Since the release of Spider-Man: No Way Home, many have been wondering what this means for Venom's future. The symbiote material is clearly setting up the introduction of Venom into the MCU, but this Venom will seemingly be a different one not played by Hardy. The debut of the symbiote within the MCU also sets the stage for Tom Holland's Peter Parker to potentially become the famous darker, black symbiote suit version of Spider-Man. That all sounds great for the MCU's future, but it risks majorly devaluing the Spider-Man universe Sony is building with the wall-crawler's famous rogues gallery.

While Tom Holland got to flex his dramatic muscles more than usual during Spider-Man: No Way Home, he's still yet to show his full range of ability while playing in the MCU sandbox. A potential arc in which Holland's Peter gets taken over by the symbiote, leading to black suit Spider-Man, could allow Holland to play the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man in a completely different way. Considering the sad state of his life following No Way Home, this could lead to the darkest take on Spider-Man in a movie yet. It could also facilitate the creation of the MCU's Venom in a way that parallels the classic origin of the character, pleasing long-time comic book readers.

There's no real downside for the MCU or Tom Holland when it comes to the symbiote becoming part of Marvel Studios' franchise, but that leaves Tom Hardy's Sony Spider-Man universe Venom out in the cold. If the Sony universe and the MCU are connected, but the MCU has its own Venom, that Venom will likely come to be seen as the "real" Venom, with the Hardy Venom being an outlier. That will especially be true if the MCU Venom gets the character's classic origin story. Many Marvel devotees never liked how Hardy's Venom origin didn't involve Spider-Man, and now there's a chance for them to get their wish with a new Venom character in a world far bigger than the one Hardy's Venom inhabits. This is one aspect of their deal that Marvel Studios seems to be getting the better end of.

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