Yes, I do believe any Spider-Man film can be devoid of Venom and still work. In fact, I've said for some time that it seems like Venom is copy and pasted in. But to both understand why Venom is and is not essential to Spider-Man 3 you need to understand one thing: it all comes down to the level of commitment. Raimi and Sargent understand the world of Spider-Man and the audience enough to understand what needs to be done. Would we see lots of people come to a well-made Spider-Man film with the symbiote but without Venom? Let me put it this way: only two people I know have guessed that Venom is in the movie. That's out of many people who I've talked in passing about the movie. That means the amount of people who will go see this just on the standard of excellence previously acheived and the character alone is staggering enough for Sony to make a killing off of.
But, playing devil's advocate for a moment, does the story come to a clean climax if Venom didn't appear? After reading the novelization, I can't say in good conscience that it would. Think about it- an SM3 without Venom. What would it climax to? Nothing would be changed as far as initial events, but think about the fact that the Sandman is invulnerable. We'd see the same things. Penny comes over and dissuades the Sandman from killing Peter. The Sandman steps down. And then what? No climatic end. Just a quiet promise to forgive one another. What would having them fight Harry, or having Harry fight the Sandman with Peter, accomplish as a climax to the film? Nothing. It would make the character development up until that useless, and leave the viewer with a dissatisfying ending. And if they show the Venom transformation at the end of this "what-if"? What do you think fans of Venom would say? Let's say the transformation showed enough for us to see that there is definitely raised webbing- how would most fans react? I can tell you right now they'd be furious that SM4 was going to have raised webbing on Venom. Why? Simply because they would not be able to get it out of the public mind that the transformation climaxes with a Venom that looks relatively complete, and that in the relatively complete Venom there would be raised webbing. Can you imagine what a pickle the production team would find itself in as well? They would have shown an ending where not only is Venom obligated by method of allusion to be the next villain up for cinematic debut, but they would also have to live with their creative decisions. And if all that was shown was the symbiote landing on Eddie? People would be downright pissed- who in their right mind would be happy seeing a movie with no discernable climax and then be hit with a teaser? That's what happened in POTC2, and many didn't like that. How would that work for SM4's sake?
So, in conclusion, I'd have to say it's a catch 22 (as my Government teacher is so wont to say)- he is both the fulcrum for this film's greatness and nothing at all to it at the same time.
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