Venom 4 – King in Black Unleashes the Symphony of Symbiotes
In the flickering neon haze of a post-credits reel that lingered like a symbiote’s whisper, Sony’s Spider-Man Universe didn’t so much end a chapter as claw open a gaping maw into the abyss.
Venom: The Last Dance—released just three days prior on October 25, 2024—danced its chaotic tango with mixed applause, a 40% Rotten Tomatoes score that praised Tom Hardy’s irrepressible bromance with his inky alter ego while decrying a plot as tangled as a web of black tendrils.
Yet, in its final frames, as the Xenophage’s roar echoed and Knull’s celestial silhouette loomed like a god from the cosmic underbelly, audiences were left not with closure, but with a hunger. A promise. Enter Venom 4: King in Black, the audacious resurrection of Eddie Brock’s symbiotic saga, greenlit in the feverish wake of Last Dance’s $7.3 million fourth-weekend haul.
Directed by returning visionary Kelly Marcel, this 2025 opus—slated for a shadowy November premiere—plunges us into the heart of Marvel’s most eldritch event comic, where the King in Black doesn’t just threaten worlds; he devours them whole.
plot
While overlooking Manhattan’s night life, Eddie Brock senses that Knull is coming to Earth. While transforming into Venom, Eddie contacts the Avengers to let them know about Knull’s arrival. According to Dylan Brock, his son, Knull is approaching.
At Avengers Mountain, Captain America, Iron Man, She-Hulk, and Captain Marvel scan for Knull’s approach as Iron Man turns the derelict Kree and Skrull warships left behind from their war with the Cotati into a minefield.
When thousands of Symbiote Dragons start to arrive, Iron Man detonates the warships which kills half of the Symbiote Dragons.
The Avengers and the Fantastic Four arrive to combat the Symbiote Dragons while Eddie places Dylan in the same bunker that was used by Ezekiel Sims which Spider-Man loaned to him. As Captain America tells Venom to go to Plan B, the Avengers and the Fantastic Four work with Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Daredevil, Iron Fist, and Luke Cage into fighting the Symbiote Dragons while making use of lightning which weakens them.
As Thor is unable to be reached, Professor X contacts the group stating that he has offered the aid of the X-Men and has dispatched Storm, Cyclops, Wolverine, Jean Grey, Cable, and Magneto to Washington Square Park as Storm starts to blast lightning towards the Symbiote Dragon.
After Eddie pays a visit to the ruins of the Spire that was used as Dark Carnage’s lair, he notes that Knull will work to take control of the Venom symbiote again. Doctor Strange uses every method to call for reinforcements as one of the Symbiote Dragons swallows him.
Breaking free from the Symbiote Hive, Eddie warns everyone that Knull is coming with the Symbiote-possessed Celestials Arishem the Judge and Tefral the Surveyor.
Knull begins his search for the one called Brock. Sentry turns out to be the other powerful recruit whom Captain America gives command of.
He sends Knull into Earth’s orbit and tries to do what he did to Carnage before, but Knull does the opposite when he knows what happened to Carnage that time. Knull breaks Sentry and assimilates the Void into him upon it emerging from Sentry’s body.
Captain America and Venom react to this, and Iron Man tells them to run away. Knull then proceeds to have his Symbiote Dragon form a sphere around Earth to cut it off from the Sun and has the living abyss swallow some of the superheroes including Storm which Professor X reacts to.
Eddie contacts Iron Man informing him that he and the Venom symbiote are going to try a hail mary plan so that he can buy Iron Man some time to come up with a plan to defeat Knull.
As Venom, Eddie goes to confront Knull and offer his services to him. Knull grabs Venom as he recognizes Eddie as the one who killed Grendel, then he states to Eddie that the Brock he is looking for is Dylan Brock.
When Eddie begs for Knull to take him instead, Knull rips the Venom symbiote off him and absorbs it into his body while planning to absorb Dylan into him as well. Eddie is then dropped by Knull into the symbiote-covered streets below as Captain America, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, Iron Fist, Ms. Marvel, Storm, and Thing are possessed by the Symbiotes.
Eddie Brock slams onto a car, critically injuring himself. Spider-Man appears and tries to help him as the symbiote-possessed Avengers arrive. Human Torch shoots a fire blast and tells Spider-Man to take Eddie to the Fantastic Four lab so he can get treated.
While Human Torch gives them time to avoid being possessed, Spider-Man takes Eddie Brock to the lab of the Fantastic Four. Valkyrie tells Spider-Man that Eddie Brock is barely alive and they need to do something quick. Spider-Man meets up with Dylan and tells him that his father is still alive but barely.
The two of them go to the Fantastic Four lab where Blade is arguing with Professor X and Magneto while Black Panther is talking to Reed Richards, Sue Storm, and Jane Foster on what to do.
They even appear to be attempting to contact Phil Coulson in order to receive assistance from the Squadron Supreme. He even inquires about the locations of the Infinity Gems, the Cosmic Cube, and the Ultimate Nullifier.
Namor arrives and agrees to help them much to the displeasure of Reed Richards. Iron Man tells the heroes that he has a plan which is to acquire a small part of a symbiote dragon, have Namor wake up the Black Tide (the ancient Atlantean warriors from Namor’s teenage days) in the Mariana Trench, have Blade go to Chernobyl in Ukraine to persuade Dracula to help them, and persuade Mayor Wilson Fisk to hire villains to help defend New York City leading to Mayor Fisk to pay a visit to the Bar with No Name.
Iron Man uses Extremis to take control of a Symbiote Dragon and brings it to the Fantastic Four to heal Eddie Brock; however, the symbiote begins to kill Eddie.
Dylan uses his power to completely destroy the Symbiote. Reed Richards realizes that Dylan is his secret weapon. Just then, Eddie flatlines.
Silver Surfer passes by the planets that have been attacked by Knull. Invisible Woman and Blade are being overwhelmed by symbiotes and Mister Fantastic wants Spider-Man and Wolverine to escort Dylan Brock out to free the rest of the symbiotes hordes.
The three of them appear to help Invisible Woman and Dylan frees Captain America from his symbiote. Knull finds out where Dylan is and is about to get him when Thor arrives.
Together, Thor and Dylan help free some of the possessed heroes. Thor and Knull fight and Thor gains the upper hand until Knull distracts Thor by bringing in his symbiote-possessed Celestials and stabs Thor in the back.
Iron Man arrives to use his Extremis-infected Symbiote dragon to take control of the Celestials, who have symbiotes in their bodies. Just before Dylan is about to taken away, Silver Surfer arrives after being summoned by Hugin and Munin.
Since Dylan possesses the Symbiote codex, Knull intends to control him, but Dylan fights back and frees Cyclops, Invisible Woman, and Dr. Strange, Black Cat and the Human Torch. Doctor Strange morphs into a stronger form and together the heroes fight back against the symbiotes.
Namor, Thor and Storm deal heavy damage, while Jean Grey immobilizes Knull with her psychic powers. She sees Knull’s past, and realizes that the God of Light (another name for the Enigma Force) is the one thing that can take down Knull before passing out.
Silver Surfer arrives to where the Enigma Force is and frees it from the symbiotes. Knull reels in pain and Eddie Brock is chosen to be the new Captain Universe.
As Silver Surfer faces off against him, Knull recalls his previous fight against him. Through the God of Light, Silver Surfer assumes a chrome form and turns his surfboard into a sword while Knull transforms his armor into one that would enable him to combat Silver Surfer.
As Knull begins to fight Silver Surfer, the members of the Avengers, Fantastic Four, and X-Men charge towards Knull so that they can aid Silver Surfer.
Just then, Venom appears having been transformed into Captain Universe stating that he’ll handle Knull from here. As Knull claims that he has killed Venom many times, Venom manages to make use of Mjolnir and Silver Surfer’s surfboard which he merged into a battle axe that is the shape of Venom’s spider emblem.
When Cyclops asks if he is hallucinating, Captain America and Captain Marvel advise Cyclops to get his head into the game as the Symbiote-controlled civilians are closing in on him.
Using his battle axe, Venom starts to shred his way through the Symbiote Dragons upon noting that Knull has become afraid of him. Knull even unleashes a Symbiote-controlled Celestial to aid him as Venom beheads it. As Venom rips off Knull’s armor, Knull states that the darkness is in Dylan.
Venom then picks up Knull, flies into the air, and punches through the Symbiote barrier surrounding Earth where Knull states that the Void is eternal and the abyss has teeth. Venom then states he doesn’t care if he’s right as he plunges his hand into the sun and uses the Uni-Power to vaporize Knull.
Then Eddie hears a lot of voices. The Uni-Power informs Eddie that the Symbiote Hive is celebrating their freedom from Knull. The vampires see that Blade is overpowered and try to attack only to be vanquished when sunlight hits them. With their weapons separated from the battle axe form, Thor and Silver Surfer noted that things will not be back to normal soon.
Spider-Man gets confirmation from Eddie that Knull is no more as Dylan embraces him as Venom rips out the Symbiote within Dylan.
The Uni-Power then leaves Eddie stating that he has become more than a human as the Venom Symbiote rebonds to Eddie. As Venom sprouts dragon-like wings and flies into the air, the hostless Symbiotes and Symbiote Dragons follow him.
Eddie is informed by the Venom Symbiote in the Symbiote language that he is the new King in Black, the new God of the Symbiotes, and the new Nexus of the Hive Mind.
The screen cracks like fractured obsidian. We rejoin Eddie Brock (Hardy, his jaw set in that trademark scowl of reluctant heroism) in the sun-baked sprawl of Mexico, where Last Dance left him nursing a tequila haze and a fractured bond with Venom.
The symbiote, that gravel-voiced glutton for chocolate and chaos, flickers in and out of Eddie’s veins like a bad habit he can’t quite quit. But the “last dance” was a feint—a desperate severance to evade the U.S. government’s symbiote-hunting hounds, led by the steely Chiwetel Ejiofor as Agent Rex Strickland, whose moral compass spins wildly between duty and dread.
Now, as black specks blot the stars above, Eddie awakens to a nightmare that spans galaxies: Knull, the ancient symbiote deity birthed in the void before creation’s first scream, has awakened.
Played with guttural menace by Andy Serkis—the motion-capture maestro behind Gollum and Snoke—Knull isn’t your garden-variety villain.
He’s the primordial architect of the Klyntar hive-mind, a necrosword-wielding titan whose arrival in Last Dance‘s post-credits tease was mere foreplay. In the comics’ 2020 King in Black arc, he eclipses Earth in symbiote dragons, enslaving heroes and heroes alike in a tide of living darkness.
Marcel, drawing from that epic blueprint, amplifies the scale to operatic heights. “We built the foundation in the trilogy—Eddie’s humanity clashing with Venom’s monstrosity,” Marcel told Variety in a post-Last Dance interview.
“Now, with Knull, it’s biblical. It’s the end of free will.” The result? A cinematic maelstrom where Los Angeles becomes a battlefield of writhing shadows, symbiotes raining from the heavens like biblical locusts.
The plot uncoils with the precision of a predator’s strike. Eddie and Venom, reunited in a pulse-pounding casino brawl that nods to Last Dance‘s Ms. Chen (Peggy Lu, stealing scenes with her deadpan wit), stumble upon the “Codex”—a cosmic artifact teased in the trilogy’s lore, the key to Knull’s invasion.
As Knull’s vanguard—hulking symbiote-dragons and corrupted hosts—descends, alliances fracture and reform in the film’s throbbing core.
Juno Temple returns as the wide-eyed Dr. Sadie, her scientist’s curiosity twisted into reluctant heroism as she bonds with a rogue symbiote fragment.
Rhys Ifans slithers in as a shadowy government operative with ties to the Lizard’s reptilian rage, while Clark Backo emerges as a fierce new ally, a street-smart survivor whose arc echoes the raw vulnerability Hardy infused into Eddie.
But the true symphony lies in the sound design—a cacophony of guttural roars, wet tendril snaps, and Hardy’s improvised banter that elevates Venom from sidekick to soulmate.
“We… are… VENOM!” the symbiote bellows in a mid-film crescendo, as Eddie/Venom scales the Griffith Observatory amid a symbiote storm, tendrils lashing like living lightning.
The VFX, courtesy of Sony Pictures Imageworks, render Knull’s realm as a void-pocked hellscape: jagged necroswords pierce skyscrapers, while hordes of infected civilians twitch in eerie unison, their eyes gleaming with alien hunger.
It’s Godzilla vs. Kong meets The Thing, but with Hardy’s humor as the lifeline—Venom quipping about “all-you-can-eat buffets” mid-apocalypse.
Critics who lambasted Last Dance for its “convoluted tonal ambitions” may find redemption here. Early concept trailers circulating on YouTube—fan-made fever dreams blending Hardy with Tom Holland’s Peter Parker in a multiversal tease—hint at crossovers that could stitch Sony’s frayed universe to the MCU’s grand tapestry.
Whispers from the set, fueled by X buzz around “Knull’s awakening,” suggest Spider-Man’s shadow looms large, perhaps in a post-credits sting that bridges Spider-Man 4‘s July 2025 pitch. Yet, at its black heart, King in Black is a requiem for the Brock-Venom dyad: a tale of codependency’s cost, where love is as devouring as the darkness they fight.
As the credits roll—over a haunting score by Marco Beltrami that swells from whispers to wails—Venom 4 doesn’t just crown a king; it anoints a legacy.
In a year starved for symbiote spectacle, this is the invasion we’ve craved: raw, relentless, and unapologetically alive. Eddie Brock may dance with the devil, but in the end, it’s the audience left breathless, begging for one more bite.