So, Morbius
was a real nightmare, huh? I don’t think, in the entirety of the time I’ve been
a fan of the genre, that I’ve ever seen such a tremendous hitch in the industry’s
collective giddyap. After such an assault on the senses, it’s not that hard to
imagine that all parties involved would wish to wash their hands of the project
with expedience, then move on to inevitably greener pastures. It’s an understandable
reaction to being associated with a film that, as of this writing, is sitting
at a miserable 36 on Metacritic and an even more miserable 16% on Rotten
Tomatoes. To put that into perspective, Halle Berry’s Catwoman is lower by only
a slim margin on both platforms.
One could be
forgiven for espousing the opinion that the Morbius-verse and all associated
properties should be shitcanned and killed with fire in a hurry. With that
said, I am an insufferable optimist and an apologist for some of the worst
projects in this niche of culture, and while I too think that this entire
universe should be taken to the pasture and turned to glue post-haste, I also
harbor the genuine belief that it can yet be saved. In this post, it is my goal
to precisely outline my plan to do just that, and hopefully, in so doing, put
to rest the weird smoky CGI demons which have haunted me for the past few days.
When I set
myself to this challenge, one of the first bugbears I had to grapple with was
which parts of the franchise to leverage into usable character arcs. I say franchise,
as because Venom is mentioned by name in this movie, I am including both Venom
movies as part of this little thought experiment. After thinking on this most
of today, I think I’ve landed on Vulture’s lines in the second end credits
scene in Morbius, “[…] I think a bunch of guys like us should team up and do
some good.”. In my mind, this reads like Keaton’s Toomes has actually turned
over a new leaf. It would certainly fit Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, the only
Spider-Man to this point who has seemingly made a significant positive impact
on any of his (and some of his peers) rogues. With multiverse happenings being
the current “in thing” in comic book movies, I think that this might be a prime
opportunity to take some inspiration from the somewhat recent Axis crossover
event in Marvel comics and from DC Comics’ Earth 3 and make this universe one
in which the moral alignment of heroes we’re currently familiar with is
inverted. Think a massive episode of What If… if it was a Sony project
with one foot in the grave.
Let’s start
this pitch off by seeing where each of the characters that have been introduced
are at this moment. Trying to make sense of the plot of Morbius may well be my
undoing here, but if I am not mistaken, Dr. Morbius is currently on the lam
running from authorities who may or may not want to catch him. He’s still
ostensibly a hero, and that’s the only real key feature that we’re looking for
here. Vulture, as of the most recent appearance, has been transported to the Venom-verse,
and is actively seeking out other people with extra-ordinary powers and/or technology
to “do some good”. It is unclear as of this moment whether Vulture’s intentions
are to seek out this universe’s Spider-Man, but assuming they haven’t ruined
his character development from Spider-Man: Homecoming, he seems to be amicable
with the Webbed Wonder at worst. Venom, as of his last on-screen appearance,
has recently been replaced in the Venom-verse after briefly stepping into the
MCU long enough to hear the story up to this point. Venom, I think, is the most
traditionally heroic of the three of these characters so far, as both of his
movies have hinged on the development of a moral code and mutual respect between
the symbiote and his host. These are heroic qualities. The part of that equation
that I think is most important is that while Eddie was in the MCU, he learned a
few very important details. It’s likely that more alien species exist, and that
some of them are outwardly malicious, and that there was a group of individuals
on that Earth called The Avengers who battled the aliens in question as
protectors of that Earth. I think that this is the pivotal piece of information
to that we can use to establish our story. This is the rock upon which we will
build what I’m lovingly calling Venom: Apex.
I’m going to
go out on a limb and guess that when Kraven comes out, that movie too
will end with a, most likely reluctantly, heroic Kraven the Hunter seeking out
his next quarry. It may seem like the easy play to assume that near the end of
his film he’ll hear about a Spider-Man in New York City, but so far Sony has
been keeping the Spider-Man card close to the chest in this franchise. Here’s
my proposition. During the post credits scene of Kraven, have a
mysterious man in a suit approach Kraven, Sony loves their mysterious, besuited
men, and offer him a job hunting down a deranged Doctor who appears to have
fled after developing super-human powers and committing several murders. This
individual will seek out Kraven because of his reputation as a master hunter
and will identify himself only as part of “The Task Force”. I specifically want
to see Michael Mando in this role, and as the meeting concludes with Kraven taking
the contract, I want a brief glimpse of a scorpion tattoo to be visible in-frame
on Mando’s neck. This sets the table for the next movie in the franchise, which
I’m going to pitch as Black Cat.
This movie
will open with alarms blaring at a corporate office building. The camera will
pan from the gates lit by orange alarm lights up to the side of the building to
reveal the OsCorp logo. After that, the scene will smash-cut to a large group
of security guards hustling up a staircase toward the top floor of the building
into the penthouse office. As they climb higher, groups of guards break off and
move to each floor, seemingly searching for an intruder. As we see them climb
the stairs, the group slowly dwindling down to a single pair of guards carrying
SMGs, we also see an unseen force winding up the building and hear a fierce wind
growing.
We then
switch to an over-the-shoulder perspective of the lead security guard as he kicks
open an office door which is wrapped with police caution tape and has a plaque reading
“Norman Osbourne” affixed to the wall beside. As the door flies open, we see
the silhouette of a figure clad in black slipping a tablet into a black bag.
The figure, seemingly unphased by the intrusion, continues to rifle through the
desk, seemingly searching for a specific item. The guard fires a volley of rounds
as a warning shot, which blows a large hole in the window behind the intruder. The
intruder then stands up. We briefly cut to her perspective and watch her roll a
micro-SD card over in her hand, then pocket the card. The main guard yells something
to the effect of “Stop right there! I’ll shoot!”. We then cut to a close shot
of the intruder’s eyes. She winks and backs toward the now-open window. The
guard pulls the trigger of his firearm which clicks, jammed. He struggles to
unstrap his firearm from its shoulder strap as his partner walks in behind him
and lingers in the doorway. We cut to the intruder again as she looks out the
window over her shoulder and then ducks, as the wind we had been following previously
blows into the window, catching the door and slamming it into the second guard’s
face, knocking him out. The intruder then escapes out the open window by
jumping through the shattered hole. The lead guard, having finally freed himself
from his weapon, rushes to the window and looks out to see nothing.
At the start
of the next scene, we follow behind a brunette woman as she walks up the street,
settling at a Starbucks or other such coffee shop. She sits down and we pan
around her to reveal Felicity Jones as the actor. She reaches into a purse and
pulls out the tablet stolen from the office the night before, and we watch as
she deletes the name Felicia Hardy from the OsCorp employment logs, scrubbing
her name from the company’s database. As her coffee arrives, another individual
settles into the seat across from her at the table. The man, in shorthand “incognito”
attire places a large bag on the ground next to his seat and slides it over to
her side of the table. Felicia then produces the SD-card and shows it to the
man. He’ll ask, “Is that it?” to which Felicia will reply, “The crypto-wallet
of the ‘formerly’ richest man in town? Yeah. It is.”
As Felicia
hands the man the card, the man will smile and produce a handgun from his coat
and covertly point it at her. “You boys never learn.” She’ll say as she stands
up calmly and slings the bag of cash over her shoulder. The man, irritated by
this unphased behavior, will attempt to shoot Felicia, only to realize that his
gun, much like the guard before him, is jammed. Felicity, now some distance
away, will break into a sprint around a corner into an alleyway. The man will
stand to give chase, only to trip over his shoelaces which have become entangled
with the legs of the table. As his gun skitters to the ground in front of him,
another café patron will notice and raise alarm amongst the other patrons.
This movie
will proceed to become a standard heist film in which Felicia Hardy, whom we
now know as Black Cat, as she is forced to burgle the very card from the NYPD
evidence locker following the arrest of the black market fence at the coffee
shop, after her “man in the chair” reveals to her that Harry Osbourne kept a backup
of the OsCorp company manifest on the drive, in addition to no small volume of
cryptocurrency. As for the identity of Hardy’s “man in the chair”, I had spent some
time humming and hawing over whether to reintroduce an established character,
or to make this person some interpretation of Doctor Tramma from the comics. In
the end, I decided that I want to make this a now-reformed Max Dillon, who now
sports the look he gained in Spider-Man: No Way Home. In between shots
used for exposition in the main story, I want to inject a view of his screen
which hints at efforts to regain his electricity-based powers. Perhaps have the
exact manner in which he gained his powers documented on the SD-card alongside
the other plot-important data.
I want the
central conflict in the film to be the heist, and the 3 parties competing to
put their hands on the data. First off are our protagonists, Felicia and Max.
They each have motives to access the data as established above. Second, the
NYPD are employing their cyber-security team to attempt to break the card’s
encryption, as they believe it will hold evidence regarding the murder of an OsCorp
board member, which occurred in the office of Norman Osborne during the third act
of The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Lastly, I want the third party to be BJ
Novak’s Alistair Smythe trying to recover the data as it contains designs for a
number of prototype drones which he created. You could even have him refer to
them as the “Slayer” drones or something to that effect.
I want this
film to end with Felicia getting back the card, finally removing her name from
the database, and Max taking the card and suggesting that he’d flip the crypto
into tangible currency so that the two could have some measurable gain from the
venture. In the first of two post-credits scenes, I want to have Dillon frantically
checking gauges and displays on a large-scale experiment he’s running some indeterminate
time in the future, only to strap himself into a chair and say “Project
Electro, Mark 2, …Engage” only to have him react as if jolted by significant
voltage and the screen to cut to black. In the second of two post-credits
scenes, I want Felicia to be approached by the same individual as Kraven,
identified by the scorpion tattoo, who then attempts to hire her services to burgle
something. When she accepts, he hands her a dossier labeled “The Life
Foundation: Project Antivenom”.
With that
movie out of the way, it sets the stage for our prototype team-up movie. I’m
calling this Venom: Apex. We open the movie with a relaxing Eddie Brock
suddenly waking as the symbiote is beckoning him. Venom proceeds to explain to Eddie
that through the symbiote hivemind, established in Venom: Let There Be
Carnage, that he can sense another symbiote nearby, but that something
feels “wrong” with it. I want Venom to explain that this symbiote’s mind feels still
and quiet, like a newborn. Eddie would then sit upright revealing that he was
asleep on a rooftop in New York City. It will be revealed through the course of
the movie that Eddie and Venom came to New York hoping to find this universe’s
Spider-Man, after hearing about the heroics of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man during
his brief stay in the MCU. Using his investigative reporting skills, Eddie
comes to find out that a few years ago a hero named Spider-Man had been in the
city but had not been seen since accidentally killing a mob lieutenant named
Aleksei Sytsevich during a fight in broad daylight. The new symbiote showing up
was unplanned and takes the duo of Eddie and Venom by surprise, suddenly changing
the priority of the visit to New York.
While
running through the city, fully Venom-suited, another surprise will find the
duo as Venom is shot by a large enough caliber bullet to stagger the symbiote
mid-leap, causing them to crash into the vacant street below. As they recover,
another round will clip them in the shoulder, then another in the knee. As they
struggle to find the source of the volley, a bolo of steel cables will fly in
from a nearby dark alley, tethering Venom’s injured arm to a nearby street
sign. Venom will look in the direction of the bolo to see Kraven the Hunter, perhaps
in full costume for the first time, step out of the alley. He will wrongfully
address Venom as “Doctor Morbius” before Venom rips the signpost out of the
ground and roars at him. At this point, Kraven will drop his rifle and pull a
long bowie-knife from a sheath on his back and goad Venom to attack him.
Despite the symbiote’s augmented strength and agility, this fight will be evenly
matched, as Kraven has a level of cunning and combat instinct that outmatches
Venom’s more primal and animalistic brawling style. In a fit of rage, Venom
will raise a nearby car off the ground a swing it in a wide arc, slamming
Kraven into a nearby tree, seemingly killing him. Venom will flee, and as he runs,
we briefly switch to a shot of Kraven’s eyes opening, then to Kraven’s
perspective to watch Venom amble up a nearby building. Kraven will stand, pull
out a map of the city, scribble a note, then disappear into the darkness of the
alley.
We’ll then
switch to an exterior shot of a coffee shop or sidewalk café where an exasperated
Michael Keaton will be flipping through a phone book and locating a listing of
several Peter Parkers living in New York City. Knowing that his Spider-Man was Peter
Parker, it would stand to logic that this universe’s Spider-Man is too. He’ll
take a moment to jot down the listed addresses of the Peters in the phone book,
then pull out a cell phone. We’ll come to discover that both Adrian Toomes and
Michael Morbius are still working together and are searching for the Spider-Man
of this universe to get answers about why Toomes was brought to this reality,
and to attempt to recruit this universe’s Spider-Man to “do some good”. It’s
worth remembering at this point that Toomes as of his last significant appearance
on screen knows Spider-Man’s secret identity, knows that Peter is a good person/hero,
and neglected to put Peter in danger given the opportunity, so I believe that
this would be in-character for this version of Vulture.
As the story
further progresses, we’ll see Toomes and Morbius seeking out these Peters, crossing
them off the list one-by-one as they go until one night in Queens, just as the
two are walking up to the house belonging to May Parker, they’ll see an explosion
a few blocks up the street and hear screaming. As the two rush to help, we’ll
see a silhouette resembling Spider-Man swinging on the building behind them. As
they arrive, they’ll find a building on fire and hear multiple people screaming
within. As they start to rush into the burning building, they’ll simultaneously
watch as a white-suited webslinger swings into the building and start to rescue
the trapped people inside. They will assist. Once the building is cleared out,
they will notice that the other hero is swinging away, and they will give chase.
Given that both Vulture and Morbius can fly, they will easily catch up to this
person and land in front of him, cutting of his path. It will be at this point
that we get our first real look at the mysterious hero, a male figure wearing a
suit seemingly like a Spider-Man costume, but mostly in white. (I’m seeing the
Future Foundation costume in my head.) Toomes will approach slowly and tentatively
ask “Spider-Man?”. To which the man will crook his head and say “Yeah… Afraid
Not.” Before slinging a “web” onto a nearby building to swing away. As he
starts to pull the “web” Morbius will grab his wrist and attempt to stop him,
saying “We only wanted to talk…”. This white suited person, however, will
interpret this as a threat and throw Morbius into a nearby dumpster. Vulture
will then say “Oh, shit” before activating his mask just in time to stop a vicious
punch to the face by this extremely powerful new adversary. The trio will brawl
in the cramped street for a moment, with the white suited vigilante seemingly gaining
the upper hand through superior combat skills, but at some point Morbius will
grab the hero by an ankle and slam him into a nearby parked car. The car’s
alarm will blare, and as it does, what appeared to be a white suit worn by the
vigilante will explode into an alien scream, revealing the face of actor Chris
Zylka inside the head. The sudden shock will cause the newly revealed symbiote
to “go feral” and wildly attack the already worn-out duo of Morbius and
Vulture, who will promptly retreat. Seeing his opportunity, this white symbiote
will also make his escape.
We’ll then
cut to Felicia Hardy, seated in a car with tinted windows, taking photos with a
telescopic lens of the headquarters of the Life Foundation. We’ll watch as she
captures photos of each of the entrances/exits to the compound, then of any
guards she can see, before finally driving the car away. As she begins to pull
away, the camera will pull back from a close perspective into a wider shot in
which we see a white blur swing onto the roof of the building and disappear. Hardy
will notice on the way back to her new high-rise apartment that she’s being
followed by a black SUV, but a brief musical sting will occur just as this SUV
is blocked off by sudden, bumper-to-bumper traffic, allowing Hardy to lose the
tail.
We’ll then
cut back to Eddie’s perspective, as he is reading a news article about a cargo
ship with several dead and exsanguinated mercenaries found on-board. Venom will
be scrungling out of his back and staring at a news clipping pinned to a corkboard
on the wall behind Eddie. The news clippings will be about the murder of Milo
Morbius and the disappearance of Martine Bancroft. As they study the articles,
Venom will continue to remind Eddie about the new symbiote he sensed and will
mention that it is distracting him too much to think about this “Doctor Morbius”
that the Russian man spoke of.
As they
bicker, as Eddie and Venom are oft wont to do, we’ll see a glint through a
nearby window, and we’ll switch to a shot of Kraven surveilling Eddie’s hotel
room and listening in over a bug in the apartment. At this point we’ll learn
that Kraven has determined that Venom is not the quarry he was hired to locate,
but being the smart hunter that he is, will also recognize that Eddie is now
also actively seeking Morbius. After some plot is established, we’ll overhear
Eddie yell, “Fine! You want to go find this new symbiote, we’ll go hunting.
After we find them, we’re getting out ahead of this Russian dude and finding
this Michael Morbius guy.” Kraven will watch as Eddie leaves the hotel room,
then waits until he exits the lobby, then pursues Eddie as he moves through the
city. This could prove to be an opportunity for a “chase” sequence in which we
watch Eddie riding his motorcycle through cramped New York streets as Kraven
exhibits his athletic and acrobatic prowess by free running over rooftops and
keeping pace with Eddie all the while. I understand that not all movies can
have a runtime like The Batman, so if this sequence needs to be cut out,
I could bear to part with it.
In the next
scene, we’ll return to Felicia as she prepares on the next night for her break-in
to the Life Foundation facility. As her [Insert product placement vehicle here]
rolls to a stop near the curb outside, we watch as she puts a domino mask over
her face. Then, in full costume, she’ll step out and infiltrate the company. In
the background of this scene, I’d like for there to be multiple opportunities
for guards to discover her, only to have bad luck befall them, keeping her
hidden. Typical Black Cat fare. Once she gets into the building and starts
moving toward the office which she believes to hold the item she’s been hired
to steal, every now and then I want the audience to see a mostly obscured man
in black and white military-inspired fatigues to be watching her from behind,
seemingly trailing her, utterly still and silent. I want this part to feel like
a horror movie.
Interspersed
with the sequence described above, I want to cut away every couple of minutes
to Vulture and Morbius flying over the tops of buildings, and I want them to be
discussing the fight from the night before. As they fly, I want Vulture to say something
to the effect of “Are you sure that he’s this way?” and I want Morbius to say “Yes.
I can smell his blood. It smells… unique.”. then we’ll pan to the horizon in
front of them to reveal the Life Foundation Compound. Meanwhile still, we’ll
cut back to Eddie as Venom is shouting directions and Eddie is quickly making
his way to the same place. Once they arrive, Eddie will attempt to sneak into
the facility covertly, but Venom, ever the impatient foil to Eddie, will take
over and bound over the fence and smash his way through armed security guards
to start crawl/running up the building. Kraven, now perched on a building across
the street will begin to assemble his hunting rifle.
We’ll now
cut back to Black Cat as she has finally made her way into the most secure lab
in the building, looking at rows of vials on a shelf. As we peruse the vials,
we’ll see them labeled. A vial with a bead of black goo roiling inside labeled “Venom”,
a red goo labeled “Carnage”, a yellow one labeled “Scream”, an orange one
labeled “Phage”, and so on, until she reaches the end of the row and finds an
empty vial labeled “Antivenom”. Seeing that it’s empty, she’ll be visibly frustrated
briefly, suggesting that this is what she was hired to steal; however, her
frustration will be cut short as a white tendril swings wildly at her, narrowly
missing. This will begin a chase sequence in which Felicia runs from a now
fully Antivenom suited man through the Life Foundation laboratories. As she
runs, she’ll notice that her power over probability has no effect on this
creature, and as she becomes more frantic, we’ll begin to show the audience
that Antivenom is chasing her to the roof to corner her.
As they
arrive on the roof, it will begin to look as though Antivenom has Felicia
cornered near the edge of the building, when at the last moment before she’s
killed Venom explodes over the edge of the building and begins grappling with
his white counterpart. Cue up a big action sequence in which we have yet
another symbiote on symbiote fight near the end of the third act. As they
grapple, I want it to be clear that Eddie is wholly outmatched here. Antivenom
seems to have formal combat training and is otherwise stronger, faster, and
less bestial than Venom. At some point in the fracas, I want Venom to attempt
to take a bite out of Antivenom, only to panic visibly, as though he had
ingested something poisonous. This fight will culminate in Antivenom picking up
a large spear of rebar from the roof and pinning Venom onto the roof with it.
Typically, this would not stop Venom, as the symbiote can reorganize Eddie’s body
inside the suit, but for some reason, he’s currently unable to. We’ll reveal as
the scene progresses, either through Eddie/Venom dialogue or through villain
monologuing that Antivenom was designed to counter Venom, and as such, coming
into contact with Antivenom causes Venom to become weaker and lose some of his
regenerative abilities.
At this
point, we’ll hear clapping. From just inside the now-opening roof-access door,
we’ll see B.J. Novak casually walk out and say “Mr. Brock! Let me tell you, it
is an honor to finally meet you. My name is Alistair Smythe, and I’ve been
watching you from across the country for some time now. Ever since I bought
this place, that is. Turns out, when you and your pet decided to blow up that
shuttle a few years ago, Life Foundation stock prices plummeted, and the de-facto
CEO of OsCorp was able to swoop-in and buy the company – and all of its
research- for next to nothing.” He’ll walk up and take a place next to
Antivenom, who is now standing at attention. “You know, these creatures are
powerful weapons. All you really need to do is find a way to shut off their
higher cognitive functions and BOOM! You have a super-soldier in a bottle. Then
any volunteer can simply bond with the creature and have, well… basically any
super-power you can think of. Flash here…” and as he says this the Antivenom suit’s
mask will pull back to reveal Chris Zylka’s Flash Thompson “…has been studying
video clips of you, video of military training exercises, and most importantly,
footage of the Spider-Man to learn how to fight with his suit, and the symbiote
bonded to his brain made him soak up the footage like a sponge.”
At this
point, I want the currently unmasked Antivenom to be spear-tackled by a flying
Morbius, who drives Antivenom into a nearby wall. Vulture would then fly in and
hover just above the rooftop seemingly waiting on an opening to join the fray. Seeing
what he could probably only interpret as a monster pinned to the ground with
rebar and a woman he doesn’t know nearby, Vulture would then fly over to Felicia
and ask if she’s okay, to which she’ll reply with something akin to “I’m fine.
Help him.”, gesturing to the pinned Venom. While a now-more-enraged Morbius and
Antivenom fight in the background, with Antivenom clearly still at a strong
advantage, Vulture would then fly over and begin to struggle to pull the rebar
out of the rooftop to free Eddie.
While this
is happening, we change perspective again to watch as Black Cat stalks around
the rooftop moving quietly toward Alistair Smythe. Just as she’s about to
pounce on him, I want him to look directly at her and smirk, then gesture at
the wall behind her where we’ll then see a spider-shaped drone with a very
Apple aesthetic. I’m thinking shiny white plastic with anodized aluminum
accents. The drone will then open its abdomen carapace to reveal a small-caliber
machine gun, which it then trains on Black Cat. Smythe then pulls up his wrist,
on which he’s wearing a smart watch, and presses a button. This button opens what
at first blush had appeared to be a water-tower and storage shed on the
rooftop, revealing the water tower to have been full of 10-15 of these spider-slayer
drones, and the shed to have been housing 10-15 humanoid drones which have shoulder-mounted
laser guns, ala The Ultimate Spider Slayer. Just as it appears that the spider
drone near Black Cat is going to fire, the Drone explodes, and the sound of an
echoing gunshot can be heard in the distance. We then see Kraven on the other
rooftop expel the spent casing from his rifle and chamber the next round.
Seeing the
opportunity to fight on, Black cat rushes at Smythe and activates the metallic
claws in her gloves. We see her start to swipe at Smythe, only for the blow to
be blocked by one of the humanoid drones. Felecia, seeing no other option at
this point, engages the drone in combat just as Vulture is finally able to
remove the rebar from Venom and free Eddie. From offscreen, a hail of gunfire
riddles the area where Vulture is helping Venom to his feet. A bullet grazes
Vulture’s leg, but he lowers a wing to deflect the rest of the oncoming volley.
This causes one round to ricochet off the wing and into a propane tank mounted
to the roof of the building, which then begins to leak propane. Venom, able to
stand but still visibly wounded and haggard, thanks Vulture and then bounds at
the still struggling Antivenom and Morbius. The combined might of Venom and
Morbius causes a shift in the state of the battle, and it looks as though
Antivenom is having trouble keeping up. As the fight between Venom, Morbius,
and Antivenom continues, we see Black Cat and Vulture engaging the drones, with
Kraven assisting them from the roof across the street.
Just as
Antivenom is on the ropes and the drones are finished off, Venom grabs a nearby
piece of rebar and rams it through Antivenom’s left leg at the knee, pinning
him to the rooftop in a reversal of the situation earlier. Morbius then picks
up a second piece of battlefield shrapnel and does the same to the other leg.
Antivenom howls in pain, but due to exhaustion can’t escape the bonds. Then the
group of Morbius, Vulture, Venom, and Black Cat approach Smythe to apprehend
him. As they approach, Smythe smugly smiles and says “You guys really work well
together. Even the guy in the back.”, waving at Kraven, “You just overlooked
one critical detail. There’s a gas leak.” He then slaps his chest which causes
an exoskeleton similar to the shell of the drones to cover him, then he throws
a puck-like object onto the ground at his feet, which emits a high-pitched
wailing sound. Venom doubles over, the sound causing the symbiote to reel away
from Eddie and screech in pain. Smythe’s exoskeleton then drops a handful of
red-blinking balls onto the ground. Vulture, correctly assuming the balls are
explosive, grabs Felicia and dives off of the rooftop, Morbius close behind.
Unfortunately, the screeching puck has immobilized Venom. The bombs detonate, causing
the propane tank which had been leaking for some time to explode as well,
sending an enormous fireball skyward and nearly demolishing the building.
In the next
scene we find ourselves in what appears to be a laboratory. We hear a ventilator,
and the camera pans to reveal Morbius, wearing a lab coat, standing near a
hospital bed. The camera moves out of the room, revealing Felicia Hardy and
Kraven sitting at a table nearby with Adrian Toomes leaning against the wall.
The three of them appear to be having a conversation, but the puffing noise of
the ventilator and the beeping of other life-support systems nearby is all we
can hear. As the camera moves back into the hospital room, we see Morbius
writing something on a chart and checking the beeping machines, then the camera
looks down into the bed. This reveals Flash Thompson, his legs missing below
the knee and wrapped in gauze laying in the bed, a tarlike black ichor enveloping
his left hand. Neither is moving, but an EKG readout nearby shows a faint
heartbeat. Roll credits.
That could
be the end of the movie, but thanks to Marvel there is no such thing as a movie
without post credits scenes at this point, so let’s talk about those. In the
midroll scene, the perspective will be that of a camera flying very close to an
electrical wire. As we follow the wire, we’ll reach the side of a building
where we’ll see a bright light appear in the window. The camera will enter the
window to reveal Max Dillon becoming corporeal in a room after traveling in the
wire. After he becomes corporeal, we’ll see that he’s standing over a bed. We’ll
see him try to wake the person sleeping in the bed, to reveal that it’s Andrew
Garfield’s Peter Parker, who will wake, panic, then leap and stick onto the ceiling
in his boxers. More credits. Then, at the very end of the movie, the screen
remains black. We hear the faintest of faint heartbeats as it begins to grow
stronger. The heartbeat will continue to strengthen, drawing out the tension
until you can feel it in your bones, then, just when the heartbeat starts to
sound like a normal one. We se a pair of glowing red eyes open in the darkness,
followed by a red glowing symbol of a symbiote dragon just below them.
I really
with I knew how to write a script.
