Sony Pushing For A PG-13 Rating For Venom

Well, talk about a turd in the wind.

According to Variety, Sony execs are pushing for their newest Marvel film, Venom, to have a hard PG-13 rating — the report says that Sony executives believe "the film should push the very limits of PG-13 without crossing over into a higher rating." What the final result will be in the film, however, is still anybody's guess.

This is a maneuver that's sure to leave hardcore fans of the symbiote-powered antihero puzzled. In the comics, Venom is a famously ruthless and violent character, designed with shock factor in mind and possessing a penchant for eating his enemies. It seemed logical that such a nightmare inducing pile of slime and teeth would fit perfectly into the recent batch of wildly successful R-rated comic book movies like Fox's Logan and two Deadpool movies.

The move towards a more accessible rating is reportedly being made in the hopes of bringing the character into a planned Sony-Marvel extended universe, which hinges on the inclusion of more family friendly characters like Black Cat, for example. This would take hard language and gruesome violence off the table, but potentially pave the way for a larger potential box office take thanks to the movie's availability to younger audiences. 

A softer look at the shape-shifting cannibal isn't the first change that the studio has made to the character. In the comics, Venom's origin story is closely linked to Spider-Man, who was the first character to possess the alien symbiote suit. But Sony stated early on that the wall crawler won't make an appearance in the Venom solo movie. That said, rumors continue to swirl that a Tom Holland cameo is being kept under wraps, so we might see the gooey monstrosity go up against the web slinger sooner than we previously thought.

Venom stars Tom Hardy and is scheduled for release on October 5, 2018.