Venom: Is the Tom Hardy film in the MCU? How does it connect to Tom Holland’s Spider-Man?

The Spider-Man spin-off has hit cinemas in the UK today, but there’s no sign of the Web Slinger.

While Venom is a Marvel villain who last appeared on the big screen in Spider-Man 3, he’s not part of Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe.

So how does that work?

Well it all comes down to studios’ rights over comic book characters.

Disney have a huge stake with their Marvel Studios, which owns the rights to most of the Avengers.

The studio has also recently bought Fox, meaning they now have control of the X-Men, Fantastic Four and Deadpool.

But it’s Sony Pictures who own the rights to Spider-Man and his villains, having made three films with Tobey Maguire and two with Andrew Garfield.

But since the Web Slinger is an Avenger in the comics, the studio made a deal with Disney for Spider-Man to appear in the MCU.

VENOM END CREDITS SCENE EXPLAINED

So in 2016 Tom Holland debuted as Spider-Man in Captain America Civil War, before Sony made his own MCU solo outing in Spider-Man Homecoming.

He’s since appeared in Avengers Infinity War and is due to return in Avengers 4 before starring in Spider-Man Far From Home next summer.

But while Spider-Man villains like Vulture and Mysterio are appearing in the MCU, Sony have been busy with their own Marvel universe – enter Venom.

Now originally Sony intended for Venom to share the world of Spider-Man Homecoming in the MCU, but have since clarified that its set in its own universe.

So in a way Venom, and future Sony Marvel universe films like Morbis, the Living Vampire, could be treated as being part of a pocket universe on the side of the MCU – a bit like Netflix’s Marvel TV shows like Daredevil and Jessica Jones.

After all, Hardy’s Venom may face Holland’s Spider-Man in a future outing once the superhero’s run in the MCU is over.

Eventually Sony will go back to making Spider-Man movies themselves, either with Holland or rebooted with another actor yet again.

So in a nutshell, Venom is sort of connected to the MCU, but also sort of isn’t. But ultimately it isn’t really worth thinking about too much, as it’ll only bring up narrative inconsistencies.