While it did seem that Venom: The Last Dance was just going to have Venom and Eddie take on more symbiotes than the last film, the latest trailer for the movie has confirmed that Sony is also bringing in the creator of the symbiotes, Knull.
Fans were surprised to see him actually show up in the trailer, but as it turns out, the people who least expected his appearance were the writers who created him.
Knull Co-Creators React to Venom 3 Reveal
Taking to Twitter, Knull co-creators Ryan Stegman and Donny Cates had similar reactions to the announcement of Knull in Venom: The Last Dance in that they’ve implied that they’re not going to get paid for the use of a character that they created in a movie.
Stegman wrote:
And Cates joked that he ‘had the weirdest dream’ and followed it up with this post:
Though it does seem right that the two would be compensated for their work on creating the Knull character, comic creators being shunned by the comic book movie industry isn’t a relatively new thing.
Comic Creators and the Movie Industry
Take for example Jim Starlin, who had created the character of Thanos (among others) for Marvel Comics. As it turns out, he was better compensated by the use of his character KGBeast in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice compared to what Marvel was giving him for the use of his characters in all of the Marvel films.
He wrote in a Facebook post:
Just received a very big check from D.C. Entertainment for my participation in Batman V Superman, Dawn of Justice (Anatoli Knyyazev), much bigger than anything I've gotten for Thanos, Gamora, and Drax showing up in any of the various Marvel movies they appeared in, combined. Guess I'll finally have to sit down and watch the movie.
That post was made in 2017, but by 2022 Starlin did say that he was happier with the compensation that he was getting from Marvel this time around, especially since they still plan to use more of his characters in the future.
Will Sony Give the Artists Their Due?
Based on what Stegman and Cates said, it does seem that Sony still hasn’t contacted them or compensated them for the use of a character that they created; but if enough buzz comes around, maybe Sony might change their tune down the line.
Though Knull is expected to just be a small role in The Last Dance, the rumor is that Sony is propping him up to be its universe’s ‘Thanos-level threat’ with the rest of the Sony heroes—Venom, Morbius, Kraven the Hunter, and Madame Web—teaming up to take him on.
Then again, that’s just speculation at this point. So far, Venom has been the only successful Spider-Man spinoff that Sony has been able to produce—besides the animated Spider-Verse films. Maybe an Avengers-level team-up could just be another blockbuster flop, but it could be the very thing that could spark up interest in Sony’s spinoff timeline.
Fans will just have to wait and see.
Venom: The Last Dance is expected to hit theaters on Oct. 25.