Upcoming Venom Movie Rumored To Be Rated R

Following the overwhelming success of mature superhero offerings in Deadpool and Logan, the upcoming Venom film is expected to be a Rated R offering.

This news comes via Collider, who also stated this could be the beginning of much bigger thing for the Spider-Man off-shoot franchise.

“Sony is developing Venom not only as the film to launch their own Marvel Universe, but as an R-rated effort.”

You can understand why Sony would be eager to take Venom into a more mature direction. After all, Deadpool became the highest grossing Rated R film of all time, as it took in over $783 million worldwide. Meanwhile, Logan has already crossed over $200 million in just four weeks. There is definitely an audience of comic book fans who want to see these characters in situations beyond the world of PG-13. They could even take Venom into the horror realm, which is sparsely traveled territory for major comic books films.

Of course, slapping an Rated R rating on Venom isn’t a guarantee for success. After all, the Punisher films failed to live up to their hype in multiple entries and never developed into a viable series for Marvel. Also, a director has not officially even signed on for Venom yet, and perhaps their vision of the character isn’t as mature as what the studio is looking at. Or, Sony could get cold feet and decide to go a safer route. Still, many fans have to be excited over the prospects of what a darker take on a beloved Spider-Man nemesis would look like.

Again, plenty of things could change before the Venom movie is scheduled for release on October 5, 2018, but it looks like at the very least they’re going to take the character in a drastically different direction than his portrayal by Topher Grace in Spider-Man 3. As of yet, though, no actor has even been announced for the coveted role. With the release date not too far off into the future, that should likely change soon.

Considering the lackluster reception the Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone led The Amazing Spider-Man films received, trying a completely different route for Spidey is probably a solid plan. Both movies made quite a bit of money at the box office, but they weren’t received in overwhelmingly positive fashion like the Sam Raimi directed offerings did (minus the last effort, of course) in the early 2000s.

While the news of an expanding Spider-Man universe is exciting to fans, keep in mind they won’t be mixing it up with the likes of Iron Man, Captain America and The Hulk, as explained by Collider.

“Let’s be clear: Sony’s Marvel Universe will not be connected to the MCU in any way (sorry, Guardians of the Galaxy fans, but a Venom crossover is highly dubious) and the planned Venom and Black Cat and Silver Sable films are all part of Sony’s own shared universe, not spin-offs of any existing films.”

Venom Will Get His Own Movie, Release Date Announced! https://t.co/rgt04rbnMf pic.twitter.com/bDNBLK5cdR

— WhenInManila.com (@WhenInManila) March 19, 2017

However, if the Venom movie is released to critical acclaim and big box office returns, that would certainly open up a whole new world of potential films for the studio. There are countless characters in the Spider-Man comics who have yet to appear on-screen in any form (Carnage, Kraven) and are long overdue for a theatrical appearance.

Sony would love to model the success of Marvel and Star Wars by putting together a library worth of films in the future. Meanwhile, DC is pushing forward with their own series in the upcoming Justice League movie. There are potentially years worth of material to work with in the future, so the success of the Venom film actually has quite a lot riding on it.

[Featured Image by Mike Mayhew | Marvel Comics | Wikimedia Commons Fair Use]