Spider-Man: No Way Home Concept Art Shows Tom Holland's Unused Venom Suit

In the recently released book "Spider-Man: No Way Home — The Art of the Movie," fans were finally given a glimpse at several never-before-seen unused concepts for various costumes that appeared in the 2021 Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbuster. While most just provide wild, alternate designs for certain characters, one piece of artwork seemingly reveals that Tom Holland's web-slinger may have been destined to don the Venom symbiote at some point during the film's production.

As shown by @SpiderMan3news on Twitter, there are not one but three different symbiote suit designs present in the book, including the classic white-and-black design seen in the comics and the original red-and-black design that actually predates the latter take on the suit. The third featured a yellow emblem, which may have been intended to keep the MCU Spider-Man's Iron Man technological influences.

Normally, concept art for an alternate costume wouldn't be as newsworthy. However, in this instance, the artwork could betray an interest at Marvel and Sony to adapt the Symbiote Saga in the MCU. After all, the iconic alien suit made its original debut in the 1984 "Secret Wars" storyline, which shares a title with an upcoming "Avengers" film. It also could be a remnant of an earlier draft of the script, which would have featured another classic Marvel Comics villain.

As Tom Holland has previously stated, "Spider-Man: No Way Home" was almost "going to be a Kraven movie," possibly inspired by the comic book storyline "Kraven's Last Hunt," which memorably featured Spidey decked out in a black-and-white suit. 

However, in that particular story, Peter Parker wasn't actually wearing a symbiote costume, but a replica made for him by Felicia Hardy, aka Black Cat (it was the late '80s; everyone was getting ready for their grunge era). That said, it's possible they were considering amending the story to include Venom (or his costume, anyway), as is being done in the upcoming video game "Marvel's Spider-Man 2."

Regardless, it would certainly have been interesting to see how Holland's Parker would have encountered the symbiote in the first place. As "No Way Home" showed in its final scene, the MCU takes place in an entirely separate universe from Tom Hardy's "Venom" films (which reside alongside Jared Leto's "Morbius" and the newly delayed "Kraven the Hunter" film). However, we also learn that Eddie Brock (Hardy) accidentally left a sample of his alien companion on Earth-616, which could mean it's only a matter of time before fans get to see Holland in the beloved black costume on the big screen.