VENOM 4: KING IN BLACK (2025)

VENOM 4: KING IN BLACK (2025) – The Symbiote War Begins

The darkness has arrived. Marvel and Sony’s symbiote saga takes its most ambitious leap yet in “Venom 4: King in Black”, a film that redefines the boundaries of superhero cinema with a cosmic horror twist. After years of teasing the Symbiote God, Knull, the fourth installment throws Eddie Brock — and Earth — into a war of survival against a primordial evil older than the universe itself.

Starring Tom Hardy in what may be his most intense and emotional performance as Eddie/Venom, and directed by André Øvredal (Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, The Autopsy of Jane Doe), King in Black is not just a sequel — it’s a full-blown cosmic event film.

Set one year after the events of Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Venom: The Last Hunt, Venom 4 opens with Eddie Brock on the run, hunted by remnants of the Life Foundation and alien-worshipping cults. But Earth’s problems are about to become irrelevant.

A tear in reality has opened near Saturn — and from it emerges a massive, planet-sized living ship known as the Necrosphere. At its center is Knull, the ancient creator of all symbiotes, a godlike being imprisoned since the dawn of time. Now free, he begins his conquest of Earth with a simple plan: extinguish all light and enslave all symbiotes — including Venom.

As symbiote dragons rain from the sky and major cities fall into blackened chaos, Eddie must unite with unlikely allies, including Toxin (Stephen Oyoung), Scream, and a reformed version of the Anti-Venom program, to stop the living darkness before it consumes the planet.

Knull, played with chilling grandeur by Bill Skarsgård, is a force of pure malevolence — ancient, nihilistic, and patient. He's not here to destroy Earth out of malice — he simply sees light and life as abominations to be corrected.

Early scenes show Knull effortlessly defeating cosmic entities and turning symbiotes against their hosts. His voice — a whisper that feels like it’s inside your head — taunts Eddie with visions of Earth drowned in black.

In one scene, Knull tells Eddie:

“You wear my child like armor. But you are no warrior. You are a whisper in the scream of creation.”

At the heart of the film is the relationship between Eddie and Venom — now strained to its breaking point. With Knull's influence infecting symbiotes worldwide, even Venom begins to feel the pull of his creator.

As Eddie watches the one thing he’s come to rely on begin to turn, he’s forced to ask: who is he without Venom? And can he trust the symbiote that once saved his life to resist a god?

The emotional stakes hit hard. Tom Hardy delivers a layered performance, showing a man spiraling into paranoia as his partner becomes unstable. In a standout scene, Eddie locks himself in a steel chamber, refusing to let Venom out — even as Venom pleads:

“I’m still me, Eddie. But he’s calling… and it hurts.”

Visually, King in Black is a masterpiece of nightmarish beauty. With cinematography inspired by Lovecraftian horror and galactic warfare, the film blends intimate horror with epic battles.

Entire cities become battlegrounds as symbiote dragons descend. Civilians are possessed. The skies darken. And in the ruins of Manhattan, Venom leads a last stand alongside mutant mercenaries and rogue scientists.

The final battle takes place aboard the Necrosphere — a living planet of tendrils and screaming walls. Eddie, using a hybridized Anti-Venom armor, confronts Knull in a gravity-warped throne room made from the corpses of fallen symbiotes.

And when all hope seems lost, the Celestials — long silent — awaken.

Venom 4 teases major connections to both the Sony and Marvel universes. A post-credit scene shows a rift tearing open over Earth, with Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum briefly appearing before the screen cuts to black.

There are also subtle references to Spider-Man, including a brief news report featuring a "young masked vigilante" in New York, and a symbiote fragment escaping into the multiverse — hinting at potential Venom-Spidey crossovers in future MCU projects.

What sets King in Black apart from traditional superhero fare is its existential core. The movie asks big questions: What defines us — the darkness within, or the choices we make to fight it? Are we just passengers in the body of fate, or do we shape our own path?

Eddie’s struggle with identity — now without a stable bond, hunted by cosmic forces, and unsure of his place in the universe — mirrors humanity’s fight for survival in a world crumbling under shadow.