Tom Hardy gets sloppy: Everything wrong with the new ‘Venom’ trailer
We never thought we’d say this, but we may have lost our boner for Tom Hardy. It isn’t all his fault, exactly. In fact, we’re confident (for the most part) to throw the blame elsewhere – most specifically at the latest trailer for Venom. Like the half-symbiote half-human antihero the actor depicts, the trailer doesn’t seem able to settle on one diacritic voice. At some points it wants to look dark and edgy, at others like a goofball comedy with a monstrous edge. It seems to edge toward Saturday morning cartoon before lurching into a twitchy nu-metal music video from the early 00s. The trailer is thick with cringe. It makes us wish Sony Pictures had some symbiote goo of their own to throw at this thing in order to bond all its components together. Let’s talk about that symbiote black goo, because the effects showcased in this new Venom trailer are looking cheap and nasty.
Franchise Conclusion and Legacy
That early trailer criticism now sits inside a finished trilogy. Venom: The Last Dance closed the live-action run on October 25, 2024, and it wrapped Eddie Brock’s arc while teasing the larger threat of Knull. The tonal whiplash the marketing once promised never quite resolved on screen, yet the three-film stretch gave Hardy a contained story that started with the 2018 debut and ended six years later. Sony’s Spider-Man Universe treated the character as a standalone experiment rather than a bridge to anything else, which left the final chapter feeling more like a coda than a launchpad.
Animated Venom Project in Development
Interest in the symbiote has shifted toward animation. Sony is moving ahead with a new Venom feature directed by Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, and Tom Hardy is attached as a producer. Whether he will also provide the voice remains unclear, but the project signals that the studio still sees commercial value in the property even after the live-action run concluded. The animated route could sidestep the tonal issues that dogged the earlier films and let the character roam in a format less constrained by blockbuster expectations.
Streaming Availability Updates
Viewers looking to revisit the earlier entries now have a fresh option. Venom: Let There Be Carnage landed on Disney+ on January 22, 2026, giving the second film its first major streaming home outside Sony’s own platforms. The move puts both Venom and its sequel in the same ecosystem as other Spider-Man-adjacent titles, which may encourage casual viewers to sample the series in one sitting rather than hunting across services.
Fan Speculation vs Official Plans
Plenty of unofficial material has filled the gap left by the trilogy’s end. No Venom 4 live-action film has been announced, yet 2026 brought a wave of fan-made concept trailers carrying titles like King in Black and Blood Legacy. These videos circulate on social platforms and fan forums, but they remain separate from Sony’s stated plans. The gap between speculation and confirmation underscores how little official movement exists beyond the animated feature currently in development.
The original trailer’s identity crisis now reads as an early warning sign for a franchise that never fully committed to one lane. Hardy delivered a committed performance across three films, yet the marketing and creative choices around him often pulled in opposite directions. With the live-action chapter closed and an animated project on the horizon, the symbiote’s next appearance will test whether the property can finally pick a lane and stick with it.
