Can you believe we live in a world where we have three whole Venom movies? Yes, before Black Panther or Wonder Woman or even Doctor Strange, Tom Hardy’s inky anti-hero has been gifted an entire trilogy to his name with the coming of this fall’s Venom: The Last Dance.
While all of Sony’s other attempts to launch a franchise have fallen at the first hurdle (sorry, Kraven the Hunter, but I have a feeling you’re going to join them), Venom has the opportunity to bring its story to a thrilling conclusion this October, in what could be the Avengers: Endgame of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. At the very least, it’s bringing back a criminally wasted MCU villain, and appears to be treating them a lot better. Marvel – 0, Sony – 1?! What timeline are we in?
Who is Chiwetel Ejiofor playing in Venom: The Last Dance?
Joining Hardy’s Eddie Brock/Venom in The Last Dance is a talented ensemble of franchise newcomers, with a couple of them crossing over from other Marvel universes. Rhys Ifans is set to appear, marking this his third Marvel film after playing Lizard in The Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man: No Way Home. Likewise, Chiwetel Ejiofor is on board in a major role, even if MCU fans will know him best as Baron Mordo from the Doctor Strange duology.
So who is Ejiofor playing? The Lion King actor is known to be portraying Orwell Taylor. In the comics, Taylor was a military man who swore vengeance on Venom when the symbiote killed his son, who worked as a guard at the Vault supervillain prison, when he escaped from jail. Taylor assembled a black ops team called the Jury, who wore suits of armor based on Tony Stark designs, and took on Venom.
Going by his sizeable role in the trailer, it certainly seems like Ejiofor could be the central villain of the threequel. And, assuming the movie adapts the comic book Taylor’s motivation, it sounds like he could be the most nuanced antagonist this franchise has yet seen. In other words, it’s possible Sony might be doing something better than the MCU for once in giving Ejiofor an actual character to play.
2016’s Doctor Strange set up a fascinating arc for Mordo in the sequel, as he became obsessed with destroying sorcerers after the Ancient One’s death, but 2022’s Multiverse of Madness ended up featuring him in little more than a glorified cameo — and even then it was as a variant of the character. Mordo is essentially a non-entity in the MCU, then, whereas in Sony’s universe it looks like he could be Venom’s ultimate nemesis. The Thanos of the SSU, if you will.
With Venom concluding, who knows how long the SSU has left, so let’s hope Sony takes a real stab at this being its own Endgame. At least it looks like it’ll have a great villain.
Venom: The Last Dance is waltzing into theaters on Oct. 25.
