Today news: Squid Game’s Jung Ho-yeon on the Scene That Shook Her to Her Core

If Jung Ho-yeon were to enter Squid Game as a contestant, the dalgona challenge—in which one must carve out a shape engraved onto a brittle disc of honeycomb using only a needle—would be where she’d meet her end. Just for fun, Netflix Korea had given her one such treat etched with the platform’s logo, a large “N.” As in the Korean thriller series, Jung’s task was to extract the design without cracking it. “I failed. Two times,” Jung laughs as she holds out two fingers emphatically. “I thought that it’s easy but it wasn’t at all.” In the third episode of Squid Game, Jung’s character Kang Sae-byeok receives a similar candy, albeit with a less daunting shape, a triangle. But unlike Jung, neither Sae-byeok nor any of the 456 players who entered the competition for a chance at 45.6 billion won (roughly $38 million) get a second opportunity at the games. If you fail on your first try, you die.
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Squid Game, which premiered on Sept. 17, is on track to become Netflix’s most watched show of all time, according to the company. Netflix says the nine-episode drama reached no. 1 in 90 countries within 10 days, with 95% of viewership originating from outside of South Korea, where the series was filmed and takes place. Written and directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk, the show follows cash-strapped contestants as they battle in deadly matches adapted from popular Korean children’s games. In deliberately jarring juxtapositions, the drama features plenty of gore and violence against brightly colored playground-inspired backdrops and eerily upbeat music. The story centers on Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), a divorced father and gambling addict targeted by loan sharks who, after joining the game, meets hundreds of others who have also hit rock bottom.

One of them is Sae-byeok, a North Korean defector who viewers soon learn is driven by the goal of winning the prize money to fulfill a heartfelt promise she made to her younger brother. But you wouldn’t know this just by looking at her steely exterior. When we first meet Sae-byeok, her gaze is cold and she barely utters a word. Only as time passes does it become clear that she yearns for human companionship and is willing to risk her life for a chance at reuniting her family.

Courtesy NetflixContestants in one challenge of Netflix’s Squid Game

Read more: The 15 Most Anticipated Korean Dramas of 2021

Jung has seen her star rise suddenly thanks to her nuanced performance of Sae-byeok. Since the series debuted, her Instagram following has grown from just over 400,000 to more than 15 million. Squid Game marks the acting debut for the 27-year-old model, who previously competed in Korea’s Next Top Model in 2013, where she placed second. Since then, Jung has walked in multiple international fashion shows and regularly traveled abroad for brand campaigns. She signed with Saram Entertainment in January 2020 to pursue her ambitions as an actor and, the very next month, auditioned for the role of Sae-byeok.

Over Zoom and in part via a translator, Jung talked to TIME about being cast for Squid Game, relating to Sae-byeok’s sense of loneliness and how she envisions the future of her acting career.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and contains mild spoilers.

TIME: What was the audition process like and how were you cast for the role?

Jung: I was modeling in New York City [for New York Fashion Week in 2020] and this was the first audition script that I received after moving to the acting agency. It had been less than a month since I had started working with them. I remember feeling very nervous but I wanted to prepare for it as much as possible, so I filmed my audition video for three whole days except for the time when I was eating.

Even after I met the director, I didn’t really think that I would become part of the project, but he reached out to me and I was very surprised. Back then, rather than feeling happy, I felt anxious and scared that this was gradually becoming a reality.

What was your reaction when you read the script for the first time?

I read it all in one sitting. I started reading the script probably around 9, 10 P.M., and it was quite lengthy but I managed to read it all until very late in the night. I laughed a lot and cried a lot. So I felt excited about the project but at the same time I was worried whether I could pull it off, and since the script was so enthralling, I read it wishing that I would not weigh down on the project but have something to bring to the table.

What was it that made you cry?

The scene that made me cry was when Ji-yeong (Lee Yoo-mi) and Sae-byeok were talking to each other. I felt that the lines themselves were very well written by the director, and I saw this interview where he said that he envisioned this scene to be one with two people who are the most innocent out of all the contestants.

Read more: The 5 Best New TV Shows Our Critic Watched in September 2021

Yes, I watched episode 6 [where the scene takes place] while on a plane and cried off all my makeup.

Same. When I read the script I was sobbing [imitates loud sobbing]. It was one of the big excitements for me to meet Ji-yeong in person. Because at that time I had to imagine Ji-yeong from the script, but when I met [Lee] at the table reading, I just felt that she’s the one.

Courtesy NetflixLee Yoo-mi, left, as Ji-yeong and Jung Ho-yeon, right, as Kang Sae-byeok in Squid Game

In what ways are you similar to your character? In what ways are you different?

I think that Sae-byeok and I are similar in that we have experience living somewhere far from home, which means that even when you feel very happy or sad, you can’t share those emotions with friends and family but have to keep it to yourself. I experienced this loneliness when I was modeling overseas so in this regard I could really relate to her. I always traveled by myself on the airplane, stayed at hotels by myself. Even though I got some big campaign, I couldn’t celebrate with someone else. I just stayed at the hotel, had a glass of wine and congratulated myself. That kind of loneliness makes me stronger, and I can feel [Saebyeok’s] strength came from that loneliness.

And what was different was, I think I was a person that lived a life relatively centered on my personal interests, whereas Sae-byeok puts other people before herself to the point where she’s willing to sacrifice her life for her family. So it was a little difficult to relate to her in this aspect at first, but after playing the role of Sae-byeok I think I came to view the meaning of friends and family a little differently.

Director Hwang has said that he wanted to write a story that was “an allegory or fable about modern capitalist society.” Why do you think the theme of capitalism in the show has resonated widely, both in Korea and beyond?

It’s probably because economic inequality is widening and we’re starting to have doubts about the capitalist system. Especially [with] COVID, it’s becoming more and more difficult to live in a capitalist society. But I think the reason why this show is so popular is because it doesn’t criticize capitalism in a grim manner but adds a twist to it with a witty touch, with the visuals and everything. I think this is why people are resonating with it so much.

You made your acting debut with Squid Game. What was the most difficult part in the filming process?

It was my first time acting and we started filming when I had not yet overcome my anxiety and nervousness. Because of all the pressure, I kept forgetting to breathe. So I tried to focus on breathing to shake all the anxiety off in order to, maybe not bring out my best performance but at least try my best in every scene. It’s very hard to name one thing that was the most difficult but I think it would have to be breathing.

When did your interest in acting start? What made you sign with the acting agency in 2020?

Acting is something I had been thinking about all the time, though not seriously. As I started modeling overseas, I started to get a lot of alone time which I spent watching films or reading books. I think this gradually made me want to express myself onscreen as well. Whenever I was alone while modeling overseas, I would always think about who I was and what it meant to be a human being and I personally think this is what eventually triggered my desire to act, and brought me to sign with my acting agency.

Courtesy NetflixJung Ho-yeon, left, as Kang Sae-byeok and Park Si-Wan, right, as Kang Sae-byeok’s brother Kang Cheol in Squid Game

What has it been like to experience this new level of fame from Squid Game? Are there changes to your daily life?

First of all, I find everything very astonishing. The astonishment that things can change so much over such a short span of time. And I also feel grateful that so many people worldwide love Sae-byeok as much as I love her. And what has changed? I think it would have to be that not only me, but also my Instagram friends, have experienced an increase in their followers. They would call me to say that their follower count jumped this much. They feel happy about that and them saying that it is all thanks to me makes me happy and grateful that we’re sharing this moment together.

Going forward, how are you planning to divide your time between acting and modeling projects?

At the moment, I don’t exactly have plans. We’re receiving so much love and support and there are many offers but I just wish that I would be able to work with people who I trust and feel comfortable around. I always try to take it one step at a time and I’m not the kind of person that works toward a big goal. So my plan at the moment is to process what’s going on and to do my best every step of the way. With time, I believe, a day would come when people have their own definitions of Jung Ho-yeon as an actor. Maybe two years later, people can define me as this kind of person, that kind of actor, that kind of model. I’m very open to being defined.

—with reporting by Aria Chen

Today news: Why TV and Film Workers Just Authorized One of the Biggest Strikes in Hollywood History

More than 50,000 film and television workers voted to authorize a union strike this weekend, calling attention to exhausting working conditions in Hollywood and setting the stage for a massive potential shutdown of film and TV sets across the country.

The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) represents an array of film professionals, including cinematographers, camera operators, hair stylists, makeup artists and script coordinators. Union members say that working conditions, which have long been difficult, have been exacerbated by the pandemic and a streaming era in which demand for content has skyrocketed. Through this strike authorization, they are demanding better wages, longer rest periods, a bigger cut of streaming profits, and a level of respect they say they are not treated with.
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“Our people have basic human needs like time for meal breaks, adequate sleep, and a weekend,” IATSE president Matthew Loeb said in a statement. “For those at the bottom of the pay scale, they deserve nothing less than a living wage.”

The strike comes at the end of a three-year contract between IATSE and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). Negotiations for a new contract turned acrimonious this summer before falling apart, with each deadline (July 31, then Sept. 10) sailing by without an agreement. Between Oct. 1 and 3, members of IATSE voted overwhelmingly for the strike: the union announced that 90% of the 60,000 IATSE members who received a ballot voted, and that 98% of those ballots were cast in favor. Ballots were cast by 36 of IATSE’s local unions, including in California, Georgia and New Mexico, with none of them voting less than 96% in favor of the strike.

If the strike moves forward, it would be the first major walkout of Hollywood workers since World War II, when a work stoppage led to violent clashes with strikebreakers outside the Warner Bros. Burbank studio. It would also be one of the biggest labor strikes overall of the last two decades.

In the lead-up to the vote, IATSE received support on social media from high-profile actors including Kerry Washington, Seth Rogen and Ryan Reynolds, as well as politicians like Elizabeth Warren. Perhaps even more impactful than the celebrity support, however, was an Instagram account that posted anonymous stories from crew members. IA_Stories, which now has 142,000 followers, posted stories of 20-hour days, of not being allowed to use the bathroom and of being on call 24/7. One writer recounted a time when producers refused to shut down a production despite someone dying from an untreated health condition in the middle of the season.

The account and the ensuing campaign have emboldened others to speak up publicly. Some have described not having lunch breaks for 40 days. Others have focused on the routine experience of driving sleep-deprived after spending hours of being on their feet. Paul Rodriguez is a film worker who has worked for 15 years in camera and lighting departments as a gaffer, grip and more; he’s recently worked on shows like Insecure and The L Word. He says that in his experience, being on set for 12 hours is “a light day of work.” “A few times a week, you’re facing the issue of if you’re going to fall asleep and die driving home or not,” he says.

Rodriguez also says that safety is a major concern for crew workers. (Improved benefits are also one of the main contentions in the current negotiation.) In January, he hurt his back and wrist from holding heavy cameras nonstop, which put him out of commission for three months. “When I came back, I was in excruciating pain,” he says. “It makes me wonder, why am I even doing this?”

While film workers like Rodriguez say that working conditions have always been difficult to handle, the combined pressures of the pandemic and the current streaming market have exacerbated things considerably. At the onset of the streaming industry over a decade ago, IATSE negotiated with ascendant streaming platforms to allow them worker subsidies and flexibility around work rules, hoping that they would provide more jobs for workers. But while those discounts are still in place, streamers are now as powerful as anyone in the industry—and platforms like Netflix, Amazon and Disney made billions of dollars in profit with everyone stuck at home during the pandemic, proving that demand for content is higher than ever. ”IATSE members have contributed their skill and artistry to these projects while the budgets have exploded,” the union wrote in an August statement. But “on some New Media projects, members are not even paid a specific scale wage or credited with pension hours.“”

After lying dormant for months, studios and TV networks are anxious to make up for lost time, and have restarted productions in full force. IATSE members say that companies are trying to squeeze productions into half the amount of time they used to allow.

A strike isn’t necessarily imminent: there will be several more weeks of negotiations, or attempted negotiations, between IATSE and the AMPTP. The AMPTP says that the pandemic severely cut industry profits last year, and they are hoping to receive concessions from the union, like not having to pay a fine for when workers miss their lunch break. Political pressure is mounting on the AMPTP to make a deal: more than 200 state and federal Democratic lawmakers have signed letters to the organization’s president Carol Lombardini to sign a deal averting a labor stoppage.

But if negotiations fall through, an IATSE strike would halt a wide array of productions across the U.S., including Netflix shows, daytime soaps, and recurring shows like Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show. (Workers for cable networks like HBO and Showtime operate under separate contracts.) As Rogen wrote on Twitter: “Our films and movies literally would not exist without our crews.”

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Today news: How Seinfeld Became One of TV’s Great Moneymakers

“People don’t turn down money—it’s what separates us from the animals,” Jerry Seinfeld proclaimed as his character on a 1991 episode of Seinfeld. At that point, Seinfeld himself was making a comfortable $40,000 per episode as the lead of his two-year-old sitcom, which had recently cracked the Top 50 in Nielsen ratings.

Three decades later, Jerry Seinfeld has gotten more chances to turn down money than his character could have ever dreamed of. Seinfeld was a huge hit while on air—earning the comedian $267 million in 1998 alone—and then raked in billions after that year’s finale, first through record-breaking syndication deals, and now as a streaming juggernaut. On Oct. 1, the sitcom arrives on Netflix globally as a part of a five-year deal for reportedly north of $500 million, thanks to both its enduring observational humor and an escalating streaming war in which classic TV shows are being used as crucial weaponry. Here’s how the ’90s sitcom has continued to rake in profit—and how it fits into a rapidly shifting television ecosystem.
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Doing the opposite

Maria McCarty/NBCUniversal via Getty Images From left, Michael Richards, Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jerry Seinfeld in “Seinfeld.”

Given that Seinfeld is famously a show about nothing—it mostly depicts four New York City friends sitting around, complaining and undermining each other—it’s not particularly surprising that the show initially struggled to win over audiences and executives alike. The sitcom, which was co-created by Seinfeld and Larry David, premiered on NBC in July 1989—typically a month for networks to dump minor projects—and was only picked up originally for four episodes. The second season received such poor ratings that it was put on hiatus for two months.

But with the beloved Cheers serving as its lead-in, Seinfeld soon caught on to become one of the most popular sitcoms in America. By the show’s ninth and final season, Seinfeld was the number one show on primetime, according to Nielsen, making an estimated $200 million a year for NBC. Jerry Seinfeld was taking in $1 million per episode—a far cry from that early $40,000—and his three main colleagues (Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Elaine, Jason Alexander as George and Michael Richards as Kramer) were pocketing $600,000 per episode. The show’s finale was watched by 76.3 million viewers, nearly matching the ratings for that year’s Super Bowl.

Seinfeld could have easily continued its astonishing run—in fact, NBC offered to raise Seinfeld’s pay from $1 million to $5 million an episode. But he turned the offer down, saying he wanted to focus more on his personal life. (A few years later, Seinfeld would infamously berate Larry King on air for not knowing that his show wasn’t cancelled.)

Double dipping

Over Seinfeld’s run in the ’90s, the television landscape was shifting thanks to the mass adoption of cable. By the end of the decade, almost 80% of American households had access to cable, with channels like HBO and MTV establishing themselves as go-to cultural hubs for more niche audiences. Executives sensed that the era of primetime blockbuster network sitcoms was on the wane, thus rendering the proven hits all the more valuable. In 1998, Turner Broadcasting paid a record sum—over $1 million per episode—to air Seinfeld reruns on TBS. “This may be the last big hit sitcom to come off the networks ever,” TBS President Bill Burke told the New York Times.

Seinfeld reruns continued to earn solid Nielsen ratings. By 2010, the show had earned $2.7 billion in reruns, according to Barry Meyer, chairman of Warner Brothers Entertainment. Usually, syndication deals decrease or end after a show loses cultural relevance—but in 2019, Viacom was still willing to pay an estimated $200,000 to $250,000 per episode for the rights to air the show on cable.

These reruns—which totaled 180 episodes—made many people extremely wealthy, including Donald Trump’s former right-hand man, Steve Bannon, who had worked in the entertainment business for a spell in the ‘90s and earned a stake in the show. “We calculated what it would get us if it made it to syndication,” Bannon told Bloomberg in 2015. “We were wrong by a factor of five.”

But the show’s runaway financial success also caused tension between its stars. In 2003, Louis-Dreyfus, Richards and Alexander refused to participate in the making of a DVD series of the show because they felt they were being taken advantage of. After a standoff, Seinfeld and the producers agreed to cut the trio in on royalties.

Read more: Pour One Out for the Network Comedy

The nexus of the universe

While Seinfeld and David probably would have been comfortable making syndication money for the rest of their lives, the entertainment industry was about to change once again. In the mid-2010s, new streaming platforms invested millions of dollars to create deep libraries to coax subscribers into their folds.

In 2015, following a bidding war with players including Amazon and Yahoo, Sony Pictures Television agreed to a domestic deal reported between $130 and $180 million with Hulu for six years. “I mean, you could just put the DVD in, but I guess no one wanted to do that,” Jerry Seinfeld said at the Hulu upfronts that year during the announcement.

Netflix probably wasn’t too concerned about not having Seinfeld in its catalog, because the streamer dwarfed all others thanks to its first-mover advantage, and its comedy bench was formidable, with viewers able to toggle between The Office, Friends and Cheers. But major film companies, sensing a change in the winds, started to build their own streaming platforms and come for properties to which they owned the original rights. In 2019, WarnerMedia outbid Netflix by shelling out $425 million for Friends to put on a streaming service that didn’t exist yet (now HBO Max). Similarly, NBCUniversal essentially paid themselves $500 million to grab The Office for the gestating platform Peacock.

Seinfeld’s deal with Hulu expired the same year, and given that WarnerMedia partially owned the show, many prognosticators expected the company to highball an offer in order to move it to HBO Max. But Netflix outbid not only them but also Amazon, Viacom and NBCUniversal.

Tim Westcott, a media analyst at OMDIA, says that Netflix shelled out an eye-popping amount of money for Seinfeld for several reasons. “The main reason people subscribe is choice. You have to have a high volume of attractive content in addition to the standout originals, where there’s no guarantee they’re going to be breakout hits,” he says. Comparatively, Seinfeld is a known-property; it’s comforting, broken up into short episodes, and timeless in that its jokes are based on social situations as opposed to historical events.

Seinfeld also has the potential to be a cross-generational draw: it could pique the interest of older, more moneyed subscribers rewatching the show after decades, as well as also a younger generation who is only familiar with the show as a cultural landmark—and might be willing to binge all 180 episodes. In 2018, The Office and Friends were Netflix’s two most-watched shows, with users watching a combined 85 billion minutes, according to Nielsen. A younger generation of viewers, most notably the pop star Billie Eilish, have not been shy about their delight in discovering these long-running classics for the first time.

Netflix’s deal for Seinfeld also helps solidify their relationship with Jerry himself. The platform already had the rights to his roving talk show Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee and had financed two stand-up specials, Jerry Before Seinfeld and 23 Hours to Kill. In June, Seinfeld announced he would be working on a new Netflix movie titled Unfrosted, inspired by a joke he had made about Pop-Tarts.

“This Seinfeld deal might even help lead to future projects with Seinfeld himself, as well as the writers and other talent on the show,” Westcott says. “It’s a good investment for multiple reasons.”

Netflix will need Seinfeld to perform well, because the lead the company had built over its competitors is rapidly closing. Disney+ has accumulated equivalent to more than half of Netflix’s 209 million subscribers despite being available for less than two years, buoyed by mainstream juggernauts like The Mandalorian and Loki. HBO Max is also coming on strong thanks to its deep back catalog of revered TV dramas and blockbuster movies like Godzilla vs. Kong. Second quarter numbers this year for Netflix show that their growth has slowed considerably. Their share of worldwide demand interest, a metric created by Parrot Analytics, fell below 50% for the first time, and they lost 430,000 subscribers in the United States and Canada.

Netflix has also sat on the sidelines as major companies have merged left and right, scrambling to pool money, talent and IP. Discovery merged with WarnerMedia, while Amazon bought Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Westcott says that Netflix’s lack of diversification makes them more vulnerable than its competitors. “Studios have other businesses to fall back on: linear channels, theatrical movies, theme parks and licensing. And streaming is a tiny part of the overall Amazon and Apple empires,” he says. “Netflix is slightly vulnerable in that if their streaming business doesn’t keep growing to the extent it has, or if they start losing subscribers, they don’t have another business to fall back on.”

And then there’s the concern that in a rapidly shifting social-media driven world, Seinfeld’s humor could become obsolete. Several critics called Seinfeld’s latest stand-up special out of touch, while many on social media have called attention to Seinfeld‘s racist, sexist or tone-deaf elements. (Conservative outlets, on the other side, have jubilantly scorned these critiques.)

But for now, the situational hilariousness of Seinfeld endures. A Seinfeld parody account on Twitter has 285,000 followers, while pop-up recreations of Seinfeld’s apartment, in which visitors could barge into the room like Kramer, drew lines across the country. There’s a good chance that come Halloween, thanks in part to Netflix’s machinations, countless imitations of Jerry, Eliane, George and Kramer will be running around streets around the world, screaming, “yada, yada, yada.”

Today news: Titane Strives to Shock, But It’s Running on Empty

There’s a fine line between movies that are genuinely original and those that feel deliberately orchestrated to shock and repel us in a winking, self-congratulatory way. French filmmaker Julia Ducournau’s alleged film scandale, Titane, in which a sullen young woman has sex with a car and finds herself pregnant, won the Palme d’Or, the top prize at Cannes, in July. And even if you have little interest in explorations of body horror, you have every reason to wonder, how, exactly, does this sort of thing work? You might think it involves pistons, or at the very least the seductive feel of rich Corinthian leather.
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But Ducournau leaves that a mystery. This not-so-immaculate conception is just something that happens, as much a surprise to the movie’s perpetually disgruntled heroine, Alexia (Agathe Rousselle), as it is to us. Alexia, as we’re shown at the movie’s beginning, suffered a car accident as a child—her skull needed to be rebuilt, and her brain seems to have become miswired, too. Supposedly, her messed-up head predisposes her to care more for vehicles than for people—her romantic encounters with humans end in bloody stabbings and bludgeonings, eventually spiraling into an outright massacre. Then the movie shifts: Alexia’s story becomes entwined with that of a grieving father, fire captain Vincent (Vincent Lindon), who for more than a decade has longed for the return of his lost son. Lindon, a marvelous actor, radiates tenderness. His eyes hold reservoirs of sorrow deep enough to swim in, and he’s also what saves the movie—at least partially—from its floundering, false transgressiveness.

Read more reviews by Stephanie Zacharek

NeonVincent Lindon in ‘Titane’

Because Titane is a horror fantasy, nothing in it needs to be believable. But it all feels like an overworked in-joke, a bait-and-switch story whose hard-right swerve into conventionality is probably intended to be its most shocking element. Ducournau—whose previous film, the 2016 Raw, detailed the exploits of a cannibalistic veterinary student—works hard to titillate us in the movie’s first hour or so, spreading out a buffet of gruesome, deadpan violence for our delectation. But Lindon aside, this surly, swaggering exercise is running on empty. Rousselle stalks through the movie like an automaton; even if her assertive blankness is intentional, she has all the appeal of pitted chrome. Titane only makes you think it’s revving you up—until you realize there’s nothing going on beneath the hood.

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Today news: Is Venom in Spider-Man: No Way Home? The Venom 2 End-Credits Scene Offers a Hint

Warning: Spoilers ahead for Venom: Let There Be Carnage

The end-credits scene for Venom: Let There Be Carnage is a bit more complicated that your average superhero movie stinger. It hints that the anti-hero Venom and his comic book nemesis Spider-Man may finally meet and that Venom has, perhaps, traveled across the multiverse.

And though it’s only a few minutes long, the scene carries hefty implications for the future of both Sony’s burgeoning Spider-verse (which includes the Venom movies, a forthcoming Morbius movie starring Jared Leto and possibly future Spider-Man films) and Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), which currently has Tom Holland’s Spider-Man on loan from Sony.
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Oh, what a tangled web Sony and Disney weave. You would be forgiven for being confused about what characters played by what actors exist across what Spider-Man franchises. And what’s a multiverse again? It’s complicated. But here’s everything you need to know about the end credits scene for Venom: Let There Be Carnage and what it could mean for the future of the both the Spider-verse and the MCU.

What happens in the Venom: Let There Be Carnage end credits scene

Sony and Marvel Studios

At the end of Venom 2, Eddie Brock, the journalist played by Tom Holland who plays host to the alien symbiote Venom, takes Venom on vacation. Throughout the movie, the two have been bickering like an old married couple; by the end, they seem to have decided to live peaceably together.

In the end credits scene, Eddie and Venom sit in a run-down hotel room watching a soap opera. Eddie Brock says that he and Venom shouldn’t keep any secrets from one another, and Venom says that if he showed Eddie just a fraction of what he’s seen as an alien traveling across the universe for millennia, Eddie wouldn’t be able to handle the revelations. Eddie challenges Venom to show him just one thing.

At that moment, the room beings to transform and suddenly Eddie and Venom find themselves in a fancier version of the hotel room (with, notably, the same layout for the bed and television). Eddie asks Venom what he’s done but Venom can’t answer—either he is not responsible for changing their surroundings or he doesn’t know how he did it.

On the TV is a new report being read by none other than J.K. Simmons‘ J. Jonah Jameson. (Simmons has played the boisterous journalist with a vendetta against Spider-Man in both the Tobey Maguire Spidey films and the most recent Tom Holland Spider-Man film, Spider-Man: Far From Home.) In the news clip, Jameson reveals Spider-Man’s true identity: Peter Parker. A picture of Tom Holland’s Peter flashes on the screen.

The clip seems to be the same one that plays in the end credits scene for Spider-Man: Far From Home in which Jameson, using a doctored tape provided by the villain Mysterio, frames Peter for Mysterio’s murder and unveils his secret identity.

Venom, watching the clip, begins to salivate over Peter. Then a stranger comes out of the bathroom and asks Venom what he’s doing there.

The Venom: Let There Be Carnage end credits scene hints Venom will appear in Spider-Man: No Way Home

Sony Pictures

On its most basic level, this end-credits scene is intended to get audiences excited about the prospect of seeing Spider-Man and Venom finally meet onscreen. (Technically, moviegoers have witnessed this onscreen rivalry before: Topher Grace played a journalist named Eddie Brock infected with the symbiote Venom in Spider-Man 3, but Venom was like the fourth villain in that over-stuffed film. Plus, as a culture, we have largely decided to ignore the third and final installment in Sam Raimi’s otherwise impeccable Spider-Man series.)

When, exactly, that meeting will be is unclear. Venom could show up in Spider-Man: No Way Home by hopping across the multiverse (more on that in a second). Or Sony could simply be teasing the possibility that Spider-Man will finally start appearing in Sony’s various Spider villain movies like Venom and Morbius.

And what, exactly, will Venom and Spider-Man’s relationship be? Over the course of two films, Venom has evolved into an anti-hero, arguably even a good guy. Eddie has convinced him that he can survive on chickens and chocolate, rather than a buffet of human brains. The only heads he bites off belong to already tried-and-sentenced serial killers. In fact, he relishes the opportunity to play the hero. So why, exactly, would Venom so badly want to munch on fellow do-gooder Spider-Man?

Pure jealousy does not seem like motivation enough. No Way Home would have to develop a motivation for Venom to attack Spider-Man beyond hunger. That seems like a tough challenge for a movie we know is already stuffed with bad guys like Doctor Octopus, Electro and the Green Goblin.

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Venom seems to have entered the MCU multiverse

Speaking of multiple villains joining forces to take on Spider-Man, let’s dig into the multiverse.

In the end credits scene, we don’t know if Venom causes the room to change or, by a stroke of luck, something strange or mystical happens right when Eddie and Venom are discussing Venom’s infinite knowledge. Either way, it’s safe to assume that Venom has traveled to a parallel universe.

We know from the trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home that the movie will be dealing heavily with the concept of the multiverses. In the trailer, Spider-Man solicits the help of Doctor Strange to try to wipe the world’s memory of his secret identity. But in the course of casting the spell, either Peter or Strange or both screw up the mechanics, and disrupts the multiverse. We learn that characters can travel across parallel universes, causing havoc along the way.

(If you need more time to wrap your head around the concept of the multiverse before walking into Spider-Man: No Way Home, I highly recommend checking out Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse, an excellent movie and perfect primer for how multiverses work in comic book films. The MCU has also begun to unpack the meaning of the multiverse and what happens when multiple versions of the same character from different parallel universes cross paths with one another in the show Loki. But if you simply don’t have the time for all that, know that the meme of different Spider-Men pointing at one another is, essentially, the future of film.)

In No Way Home, characters from previous iterations of the Spider-Man franchises (the ones starring Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield) are slated to show up as villains to fight Tom Holland’s Peter Parker, including Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus and Jamie Foxx’s Electro. There’s even heavy speculation that Maguire and Garfield’s versions of the webslinger will be transported to Peter’s universe too.

Now, it seems, that characters from Sony’s currently-airing Spider-verse may appear in the movies too. In two Venom movies, not once has any character mentioned that a guy who dresses up like a spider is defending the streets of New York. Granted, Venom lives in San Francisco, but if Spider-Man, the Avengers or even local heroes like Ant-Man (who also resides in the Bay Area) existed in Venom’s universe, one of them probably would have shown up to try to prevent the symbiote from feasting on people’s heads.

So it’s safe to assume that Venom lives in a world without other well known superheroes. It’s possible that Venom was sent to a parallel universe—a universe where the Avengers and Spider-Man do exist—during Doctor Strange’s spell, and that’s what we’re seeing on the screen. The fact that the room has the same layout when it’s run down and when it’s nicer hints that it’s just a parallel universe version of itself.

Spider-Man: No Way Home will likely be Spider-Man’s last movie in the MCU

Sony and Marvel Studios

If No Way Home sounds epic, that’s because it’s likely Disney’s send-off to the Spider-Man character.

Right now, Spider-Man is only a part of the Disney’s MCU because Sony is lending Disney the character. Sony owns the rights to Spider-Man and all Spider-Man related characters. The first two Spider-Man movie series, one starring Maguire and another starring Garfield, were made by Sony. But Garfield’s movies got ho-hum reviews from critics and didn’t make as much at the box office as expected.

Just as Spidey was floundering, Disney’s MCU was flourishing: Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy both premiered in 2014, the same year as the doomed Spidey sequel, Amazing Spider-Man 2. More important still, Winter Soldier and Guardians in particular proved that the MCU could break out of the typical superhero formula and tell a wide range of stories, from that of an earnest patriot caught in a cold war thriller to that of a joke-cracking raccoon.

Sony and Disney came to a deal: Disney would help Sony reboot the Spider-Man franchise, but Disney would get the rights to use Spider-Man in a few team-up films, like Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. That deal almost blew up before Spider-Man: No Way Home was ever filmed. Finally, the two studios agreed to team up on one last movie together. Then Sony will take back Spider-Man. (That may be why the name of the film sounds rather ominous for Peter.) So don’t hold your breadth for Spidey to fight alongside Doctor Strange or Captain Marvel ever again.

What the future of the Spider-verse looks like

Sony Pictures AnimationSony tests the unassailable appeal of Spider-Man by expanding and modernizing his universe

No Way Home isn’t just the MCU’s last Spider-Man movie. It’s also the last Spider-Man film under Holland’s contract. Holland has expressed interest in continuing to play Peter Parker, whatever Sony may decide to do with him, but the studio will likely remain mum on Holland’s fate until after the film premieres.

It’s certainly possible that Peter gets transported to a parallel universe, one where Venom and Morbius and all the Spidey villains getting their own movies at Sony exist, and simply continues the battle under another studio’s umbrella. Or it’s possible that Sony will want to reboot the character yet again with another actor, or perhaps build a whole new franchise around a different hero in the Spider-Man universe, like Miles Morales, a character who proved his popularity in the animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse.

Meanwhile, Sony is working hard to build its own superhero cinematic universe to rival those of Disney’s MCU and Warner Bros.’ DCEU. They’re planning an Into the Spider-verse sequel and spinoff, movies based on Kraven the Hunter and a rumored Sinister Six project.