‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage’

Sony Pictures Releasing / © Marvel Entertainment / Courtesy Everett Collection

Tom Hardy is ready to tango one last time with Venom, the Marvel anti-hero he has played for the past six years. The actor stars in the first trailer for Venom: The Last Dance, which is billed as the final film of Hardy’s trilogy in which he plays journalist Eddie Brock — a man who bonds with an alien symbiote, together becoming Venom.

Hardy has taken a hands-on approach with the Venom franchise, earning a story by credit on The Last Dance and previous entry, Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021). His frequent writing partner Kelly Marcel steps into the director’s chair for this installment, which opens Oct. 25.

The Last Dance follows Venom (2018), which became a surprise overperformer at the box office, earning $856.1 million globally. Hardy followed that up with Let There Be Carnage (2021), which topped $506.8 million at the box office, a solid showing considering it was released amid pandemic challenges, as well as an overall softening of the superhero movie market.

The franchise has been an outlier success for Sony as it tried to build out a universe of movies based on ancillary Spider-Man characters to which the studio has the film rights. Films like Morbius (2022) and Madame Web (2023) brought in significantly less than Hardy’s films, and The Last Dance will test the continued appetite for the franchise after several years of big-budget superhero movies struggling at the box office. The studio also has Kraven the Hunter due out Dec. 13, just weeks after The Last Dance arrives. Stars of The Last Dance include Juno Temple and Chiwetel Ejiofor.