Well, this sucks. For all the hubbub the new trailers and whatnot have been making about Tom Hardy's VENOM eating faces off people's heads and chewing on spleens and spitting out spines, today it looks like the powers that be over at Sony may be getting cold feet about VENOM's hard R rating and just might step it back a notch (or a thousand) and edit the film down to a more mainstream PG-13 before it hits theaters this October.
The possibility of this being Sony's plan was hidden in a recent article over on Variety where it's written:
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).
Everybody together now: What is this shite?! Wasn't VENOM promised to be an R-rated film earlier this year? Yes, it was. I guess we'll have to wait and see exactly what Sony's plans are for the film, but after recently getting word that Warner Brothers got cold feet over THE MEG being rated R (and then cut out all the gore) I'm thinking 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.