Venom: Let There Be Carnage’s after-credits scene, explained

Between the outstanding Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the enjoyable original Venom, and its pretty great sequel, Sony’s third try at a Spider-Man universe is off to a strong start. But like any great sequel, Venom: Let There Be Carnage has much grander ambitions for Sony’s franchise.

Just before the credits, Let There Be Carnage sets up a teaser for its own sequel as it seems like a new symbiote may have arrived on the scene. But the real excitement comes from the mid-credits scene, where the sequel expands Eddie and Venom’s horizons and makes his entire universe a little bit bigger.

Venom only has one mid-credits scene. There is nothing at the very end of the credits, so you’re fine to leave once you’ve made it that far.

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Spider-Man: Far From Home, and the ... trailer for Morbius: the Living Vampire.]

After saving the world from Carnage, for now, Eddie and Venom take a tropical vacation. When the post-credits scene begins, the two are laying in bed, watching a Spanish-language soap opera which prompts Eddie to wonder whether or not Venom hides things from him. Venom explains that he has access to eons of collective Symbiote hive-mind knowledge that spans thousands of universes and realities and that Eddie’s mind couldn’t handle it.

In other words, yes he hides stuff all the time. But as a show of good faith, Venom says he’ll show Eddie just one example.

Image: Columbia Pictures/Marvel

Just as Venom is preparing to show Eddie something, the room starts to shift and the Symbiote gets worried. Their hotel room changes completely, the sky gets brighter, the entire look of the movie changes, and they’re transported to a similar but slightly different hotel room — maybe even in a parallel universe.

As a brief aside: If we’re taking wild guesses, it seems like this all might be happening at the exact same time that Dr. Strange casts the spell we see in the trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home.

In this new reality, there’s also a new show on Eddie and Venom’s TV, which Marvel devotees will quickly recognize as the after-credits scene from Spider-Man: Far From Home. J.K. Simmons, who has twice played J. Jonah Jameson in live-action Spider-Man franchises, reveals that the real identity of Spider-Man is Peter Parker, before showing a photo of Tom Holland in the Spider-Man costume without his mask.

Neither Eddie nor Venom seem to know exactly what’s happening, but Venom says, “that guy ...” before trailing off and licking the TV image of Peter.

All this is a complicated way to say that it seems like Eddie and Venom have crossed from their own reality, into the Marvel universe we’ve been acquainted with for the 13 years since Iron Man was first released. The one big question is whether or not they’ll show up in the Spider-Man: No Way Home, which is set to premiere in theaters this December.

Speaking of villains, Michael Keaton’s Vulture will appear in Sony’s upcoming Morbius: The Living Vampire, which could mean that even more crossovers are on their way. For now Sony and Marvel have an agreement that allows Spidey to live in the MCU, which helps promote the character for Sony and gives Marvel one of its most iconic heroes — and stars. Despite this agreement, Sony is still the actual rights holder to the hero, so it wants to wring its Marvel properties for everything they’re worth in the immediate future, with tons of Spidey-adjacent movies on the horizon.