Confirmed: Venom starring Tom Hardy has been rated PG-13

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

In a truly weak turn of events, it looks like Sony has gotten their way and director Ruben Fleischer's upcoming take on Marvel's SPIDER-MAN villain VENOM starring Tom Hardy has been edited down to a more mainstream PG-13 rating. News of this development comes to us from our parent site, JoBlo.com, and you may remember we let you guys know this might be in the works last month when an article in Variety said:

It’s unlikely that “Venom” will be the first R-rated Sony Marvel movie. Trailers for the film, which recently underwent reshoots in Los Angeles after shooting in Georgia, emphasized the horror movie elements, showing the title character as he’s about to bite a person’s head off. But some members of Sony’s brain trust believe that the film should push the very limits of PG-13 without crossing over into a higher rating. The feeling is that will give the studio greater leeway for future installments that will feature Spider-Man, something “Venom” does not do. Any Spider-Man movie will carry a PG-13 rating because the wall-crawler is more family friendly, and if “Venom” is too dark and gory, it might preclude other film match-ups, not just with Peter Parker’s alter-ego, but also with other members of the extended Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). 

This PG-13 rating is one of the weaker things I have heard in a while. After all, it wouldn't be so bad had the powers that be not assured all of us that the film was going to be R-rated all along. I think the trend of big-budget R-rated movies (that started with LOGAN and DEADPOOL) might be over. Which sucks.

Scripted by Scott Rosenberg, Jeff Pinkner, and Kelly Marcel, VENOM still doesn't have an official synopsis, but Fleischer has said that it drew inspiration from two different comic book storylines. One of those storylines is Lethal Protector, in which Venom fights "five new offspring of the Venom Symbiote: Scream, Phage, Riot, Lasher, and Agony." The other is Planet of the Symbiotes, in which "Earth is invaded by an army of symbiotes."

Hardy plays Eddie Brock, the journalist who gets coated in the Venom symbiote. His co-stars include Michelle Williams as Eddie's wife Annie Weying, Riz Ahmed as the symbiote-studying Dr. Carlton Drake, Jenny Slate as a scientist, Woody Harrelson as "a henchman of sorts", and Reid Scott as a mystery character.

VENOM is set to be released on October 5th.