Dear Sanford,

You are responsible for the ‘Marvel universe’ within Sony Pictures Entertainment. So I take it you’re the best person to answer my question: Venom 2: Let There Be Carnage is just an excuse for a post-credit scene, right?

Venom 2 has been a hit for Sony since its release. It has officially crossed the $400M mark which is great, especially by pandemic standards. And although the movie is fun (to a degree), I can’t help but feel the entire production serves as a lead-in for a juicy post-credit scene that changes the game for cinematic universes.

It started with the early social media reactions for Venom 2 back in September. All the fervor around the film wasn’t about the film itself, but rather, the post-credits scene. Then, came the no spoilers campaign—something that has become synonymous with the superhero blockbuster surprise tease. Not spoiling a movie should be common practice for any release but after watching Venom 2, there isn’t anything worth spoiling aside from the post-credit scene.

And then came the day of my screening. I grabbed my reserved tickets only for the attendant to say, “stick around until the end.”

C’mon, Panitch. You and I both know the Sony rep doesn’t care if I stick around until the end unless she was specifically told to say that as part of the marketing push from top brass.

Therein lies the problem with Let There Be Carnage. It’s not the post-credit scene itself (which is very exciting). No, it’s the film’s dependency on said scene to make up for its shortcomings.

Venom 2: Let There Be Carnage is a chaotic misadventure that moves fast and breaks things. Its breezy 90-minute runtime—although a welcome relief from unnecessarily long blockbusters, rushes through all its important bits in favour of the good stuff. And I’m not talking about the ooey-gooey finale full of CG tentacle hentai porn. I’m talking about the post-credit scene.

Everything Venom 2 does, it does to get to the end. The movie flies through Eddie Brock and Venom’s odd couple relationship. I think the pivotal separation between the two lasts 20-25 minutes tops?

There isn’t much that establishes Cletus Kasady as a psychopathic serial killer. He mostly sits behind a cell and talks in riddles like he’s in a Fincher movie. The worst thing he does on-screen is kill a man for his vacation shirt—oh, the humanity!

There’s a lack of build-up to establish Cletus Kasady and Shriek’s (Naomie Harris) romantic relationship. Everything is summed up in a brief animated montage. Come to think of it, Oscar-nominated Naomie Harris barely has any speaking lines.

Even the big climactic battle at the end—the thing that embodies the superhero third act—lasts only a couple of minutes followed by an immediate jump cut to a sunset by the beach.

All this says to me is that Venom 2 was never a standalone priority for Sony. I doubt anyone who has seen Venom 2 will disagree when I say, if the events of this film never happened, minus the post-credit scene, it would not impact Sony's plans for their Spider-Man Universe.