As Venom: The Last Dance receives scathing reviews, a very familiar name is confirmed to be playing big villain Knull

Are you excited for Venom: The Last Dance? Well, you might not be happy to hear it’s been receiving less-than-desirable reviews. On the other hand, they found a fantastic actor to play main baddie Knull, King in Black.

Via The Hollywood Reporter’s chat with writer-director Kelly Marcel, who took over directing duties after co-writing the previous installments, we’ve learned that Andy Serkis is officially playing Knull, though the screentime of his debut may be a bit limited.

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first: Venom 3 isn’t convincing many critics… which isn’t a surprise after the two previous movies weren’t exactly Oscar contenders. As it stands, it’s sitting at 38% approval on Rotten Tomatoes with 69 reviews (nice) logged. That’s above Venom’s dreadful 30% and below Venom: Let There Be Carnage’s 57% (almost fresh). A recurring complaint appears to be the lack of focus on Venom and Eddie’s off-beat relationship, which turned sort of romantic in the second movie.

These movies have traditionally struggled with the serious plot business and only felt endearing when they doubled down on comedic beats and wacky antics. It sounds like the trilogy-capper leans harder on the self-serious stuff, which is a shame. Still, you do you if the Spider-Man-less Venom series has worked for you well enough so far. In fact, it seems that many moviegoers are planning to catch it this weekend and into Halloween, as the early box office tracking is firmly on the positive side.

Regarding Knull, the main villain in the shadows and god of symbiotes, Andy Serkis’ casting was something that happened by default after the actor-director helmed the second movie, according to Marcel: “We all love Andy. We knew on Venom 2 that he was going to be this [Knull] character, should we be able to bring the character into this movie. He was the only person we asked, and of course, he was thrilled and excited. He’s one of the greatest voice actors there is. Knull is also mocap and CGI, and so it was brilliant [to work together].”

Word on the street is that he’ll pop up again either in Sony’s universe or the MCU, and I’m guessing we’ll have a better idea of where this is all going once we watch Venom: The Last Dance, which opens tomorrow, October 25, in most territories.

Will another more-than-decent box office haul convince Sony Pictures to keep the Venom-mania going? “We were asked to do three, we’ve delivered three, and who knows what the future holds. I hope that we’ve laid groundwork for them in this third movie with other characters and other symbiotes and bad guys that they can run with, should they choose. But this is the last one for Venom and Eddie,” said Marcel. Looking at the mess that Sony Pictures’ recent Marvel efforts beyond Venom have been, we wouldn’t be surprise if they were kept around.

Without having seen the threequel yet, we can also hope for a MCU-set crossover with Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, which is something that star Tom Hardy would enjoy. Spider-Man 4 is shooting next summer, and we’ll learn officially about where that story is going next sooner rather than later. With the multiverse still wide open, the opportunity is right there.