What Did Tom Hardy Say About Venom’s Crossover With Tom Holland’s Spider-Man? ( Photo Credit – Instagram )
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Back when the Venom trilogy wrapped with Venom: The Last Dance, fans were still clinging to one unanswered question – why didn’t Tom Hardy’s Venom ever face off with Tom Holland’s Spider-Man? It stayed oddly off-screen for a rivalry that defined generations in comics and animation. And now, with Sony hitting pause on its Spider-Man spin-offs, the missed crossover finally made a bit more sense.
Tom Hardy didn’t hide his feelings about it either. During a promo chat for Mobland, Hardy admitted to The Playlist, “We got close. We got as close as I could possibly imagine getting, apart from doing a film together, which I would have loved to have done because that just means so much fun.” That was the closest the two universes ever got, almost.
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The breadcrumb trail was there. The post-credits scene in Venom: Let There Be Carnage teased Tom Holland’s Spidey on a TV screen. Then Spider-Man: No Way Home brought Hardy’s Venom into the MCU… for five seconds in a bar. Just enough to raise hopes. Not enough to deliver.
So, what actually stopped the crossover? Simple answer: rights. Sony owned the Venom films. Marvel Studios, under Disney, ran the show for Holland’s Spider-Man. And while the studios collaborated on Spider-Man’s big-screen adventures, they didn’t co-sign on everything. That meant no green light for a full-blown Venom crossover.
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The Venom films didn’t win over critics even with nearly $1.8 billion in box office earnings. For the MCU, which built its empire on carefully crafted storylines and clean branding, blending in a messier franchise was a tough sell. Sure, Hardy and crew had freedom, but they played within their own sandbox.
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The real heartbreaker? Hardy wasn’t pushing for it, just as a fan. He was doing it for the younger crowd. In the end, it wasn’t a lack of interest. It was corporate red tape, creative control, and a complicated relationship between two cinematic empires. With Sony shifting its focus to Spider-Man 4, which still had no villain announced, it remained unclear if a new Venom would eventually take the stage.
Tom Hardy had bowed out. The crossover that could’ve been never came. But in the multiverse of maybes, this one stung a little more.
