Part 3 of...
-and-
Warning, heavy Spider-Man: No Way Home spoilers ahead.
So! Barring a Holland-Spidey cameo in "Multiverse Of Madness" it looks like the Sony/Disney deal is done, and Sony's taking their Tom Holland ball and going home.
Now where does that leave us?
I think we can look at "Let There Be Carnage", "No Way Home", "Morbius", and Sony's pre-MCU plans for some big fat clues.
Let's take each item in turn, and assemble the puzzle.
"Let There Be Carnage", in the after-credits, Tom Hardy Venom appears in the MCU with Holland-Spidey on the news clearly immediately after the ending of "Far From Home".
Which is exactly where NWH picks up.
"No Way Home", mid-credits, Hardy-Venom gets sucked back to the Venom-verse, but leaves a little blob of Venom behind.
If this piece grows, and possesses the MCU copy of Hardy, bam, you've got a Venom that can fight Holland-Spidey for part 4.
Now, to where Holland-Spidey is left at the end of NWH.
Spoilers, you were warned.
The whole MCU has their memory erased of Peter Parker to undo the multiverse damage of Dr. Strange's spell.
So, the MCU heroes don't remember working with Spidey.
People remember Spidey, but no one knows his secret identity, which is what Peter wanted in the first place.
This cuts off his access to Stark Industries though, so he makes his own homemade costume, which I assume will be his Sony-exclusive costume.
The memory erase, and the new costume, are IMHO, clearly Marvel severing the ties in a pretty final way.
Now, Holland-Spidey will theoretically live in the MCU world, but he just won't rub elbows with MCU characters anymore.
Which comes to the most painful part.
I think Zendaya-MJ, and Ned might be MCU-unique creations.
So Sony has to leave them behind.
So Holland-Spidey has to say goodbye to them.
This is both a case of Disney being petty, but also Sony trying to have it all by not rebooting again.
So what does Sony get to keep?
The character of Spider-Man, and the use of the actors who played him.
The villains, and ditto the actors.
So, they can have Vulture, and Michael Keaton can play him, but they can't have the suit Disney made for him, and they can't reference Stark, or "the battle of New York".
Which gets to the Venom-verse (and by extension, Morbius).
In Venom-1 there have never been aliens before, the symbiotes are the first extraterrestrials.
This contradicts the aliens the MCU is swarming with going back to Asgardians.
So, Venom-1 can't be MCU-adjacent like Amy Pascal said.
So! The "Carnage" and NWH after-credits solves this.
Now, clone-Venom is in the MCU with Holland-Spidey, as is Morbius and Vulture, so the little continuity hiccup of Venom-1 is fixed.
There'll no doubt be MCU clones of everyone Sony-Venom knows, and they'll pretend nothing happened, and bam, Holland-Spidey is effectively in the Venom-verse now.
This is actually Sony doing good continuity, and good on Amy Pascal!
Kevin Feige may hate her guts, but for the fans, she's actually a hero here.
Raise a toast to Amy Pascal!
So, the memory reboot, and the Venom blob are clear hints Spidey-4 will be Holland-Spidey vs Hardy-Venom.
And I think fans will dig it.
As much as an MCU outing?
We'll have see.
Holland is charming, Hardy is funny, it'll be interesting.
I think the "home" theme to the titles will be gone.
Kiss that goodbye.
That annoyed half of everyone, so I don't think anyone's gonna cry in their beer over that.
I think they'll just go with "Spidey vs Venom" or "Spidey! Venom! Maximum Carnage!" or whatever.
It won't be called "Spider-Man 4" that'll just be our placeholder title until Sony picks something.
Now! They've tied the 5 classic-Spideys and Venom-verse all in, will Sony merge the animated Miles-verse in?
Come on, they've come this far, and made all these chess moves, what do you think?
Of course they will.
I think we'll see something as soon as an after-credits for "Across The Spider-verse Part 1" and then it'll be the main theme of Part 2.
Electro in NWH even dropped the line "there must be somewhere out there where there's a black Spider-Man!".
Come on, that was a Miles Easter egg.
They're gonna tie it in.
Now! To Sony's pre-MCU plans, and how much they've already re-integrated, and how much they plan to.
-Sinister Six.
They had 5 villains in NWH, so close.
And they're building the villain roster in Morbius with Vulture as the Nick Fury.
So that's already started to happen.
-Untitled female superhero movie.
Spider-Woman is in "Across The Spider-Verse 1" and she's getting a live-action solo movie, so that's getting set up.
-Amazing 3.
Died, but it was supposed to have Venom, and now it looks like a good bet Holland-Spidey 4 is gonna do that.
-Venom vs Carnage.
Has already happened.
-Glass Ceiling.
The production title for "Untitled female superhero movie".
Will probably be "Across The Spider-Verse 2".
-Aunt May solo movie.
Yuck.
Hopefully, this died.
Look, May is a badass in the Miles-verse, that's good enough.
The Sony hacks made the Sony/Disney deal happen, and it killed Sony's old plans.
...for awhile, but they're right back at it, as we're seeing.
You can't fault Sony their plucky tenacity, that's for sure.
So, I'm pretty confident this is where Spidey's going for the foreseeable future.
Unless Sony and Disney shake hands again so Spidey (and Venom!) can play with Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and The Marvels for "Secret Wars".
But by then, it'll be 2030, and Sony will have done all their stuff anyway.
The winners?
Us, the fans.
This'll be fun.
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