How Venom: The Last Dance ends Tom Hardy's trilogy — and sets up future movies

Warning: This story contains spoilers about Venom: The Last Dance.

"We are Venom" no more. But what about Knull?

Venom: The Last Dance truly was the last dance for Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and his alien symbiote BFF. After three movies, Venom sacrifices himself to save Eddie and the entire world from the incoming army of xenophages led by their creator, Knull (Andy Serkis). But this might not be the last we see of Knull, according to Venom: The Last Dance director/writer Kelly Marcel.

Lifted directly from Marvel Comics, the movie version of Knull is an alien god supervillain who created all the symbiotes and the nearly indestructible xenophages. Betrayed and locked up by his symbiote children, Knull spent eternity sending out his loyal xenophages to search the universe for the "codex," a key that would free him from his prison to destroy... well, everything. And wouldn't you know it, the codex just so happens to live inside Eddie and Venom, and the only way to destroy it is if either Eddie or Venom dies. See where this is going?

When it becomes clear that humans and symbiotes are no match for the xenophages — even with an army of special forces soldiers and symbiotes working together to fight them — Venom decides to make the ultimate sacrifice, bonding with the xenophages and killing them all and himself with acid. His death successfully destroys the codex, keeping Knull in his prison. Later, Eddie's crimes are expunged from his record, and he's free to live a new life (as long as he doesn't reveal anything about his experiences with Venom or other aliens, under threat of imprisonment). The third and final Venom film ends with Eddie visiting New York City — which was always Venom's dream — and reminiscing about his lost "buddy," promising never to forget him.

While Eddie's story may be over, the movie sets up Knull to potentially return as a villain in future films. The mid-credits scene features the "King in Black" vowing to free himself and get his revenge on the universe. The Venom: The Last Dance director — who also wrote all three Venom movies — confirms to Entertainment Weekly that this film is intended to be the end of the Venom trilogy but "just the beginning" of Knull.

"We always knew that Knull was this massive, incredible, terrifying supervillain that we always were interested in trying to explore," Marcel tells EW. "We knew that we wanted to use xenophages in this movie, and they are obviously the children of Knull, as are the symbiotes, and so the xenophages have to be sent by somebody. But Knull is an incredibly massive character, so this movie is very much an introduction to that character. I'm sure he has many more stories to tell. You can't just do one Knull movie."

The director adds that she "can't wait to see what happens with him" in future movies because "this is certainly just a taster." But since she only just finished making Last Dance about two weeks before its release, she can't even think about the future yet.

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"Tommy and I wanted to finish our three movies, and we wanted to lay ground [for more]," Marcel says. "There are other Easter eggs throughout the movie that lay ground for anywhere that you would want to go whilst also concluding our trilogy. But the idea of even thinking about anything other than the press tour and then a really nice sleep hasn't entered my brain yet. That might be a question for a few months down the line after a vacation... We're introducing a massive character in this universe that will have their own life beyond, but this is very much the end of this trilogy with no connection [to the Marvel Cinematic Universe]."

Marcel and Hardy — who are longtime friends and worked closely together on making the Venom trilogy — always knew they wanted to end Eddie and Venom's story after three movies. "We always saw it as a three-story arc, and we always knew where it was going to end, and it's something that we thought about from the first Venom," she reveals. "It is really special, and we've been really incredibly lucky. Sony have been incredible partners to us and really supported what I think is a really brave decision."

Venom: The Last Dance is now playing in theaters.