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Avi Arad: Venom Was Never Meant to be Rated-R


A lot of people were assuming that Venom was going to play the Deadpool route and come out Rated R, but it has recently been confirmed that the rating of the movie is actually PG-13. According to producer Avi Arad, it was never really planned for the film to be Rated R at all.

Talking to ComicBook, Arad explained:

"To me, R is not a consideration. Can you get away with not R so that other people can see? So that younger people can see? I made an animated show. There was a lot of Venom in there. It was in '94. There's no reason to put in violence. To define what Venom is as violence. He's not. He's the lethal protector, which is a very different thing. We want to be really true to the comics. Today, in CGI and stuff, we can make Venom bite your head. But we don't have to show the head going side to side like, 'that actually tastes good.' It's irrelevant. What's relevant is that you finally understood, is that a bad guy? Yeah."

No doubt, a lot is riding on this Venom movie to succeed, so it's only understandable that Sony wants to reach as many people as they can without straying too far from the spirit of the character. Perhaps down the line, the Venom sequel could have an R-rating, but for now, the best option might be to ease down the rating so more people can watch the film.

Besides, what Arad said about showing explicit violence actually makes sense. I don't really need to watch Venom bite someone's head off in detail to know what kind of hero he's about. All I need is a cut of him putting his mouth son someone's head, and it would just be up to my imagination what would be happening offscreen as I hear the squishes and cracking of a human skull.

Venom is set to hit theaters Oct. 5.

See Also: Venom Produces Admits Eddie Brock's Introduction In Spider-Man 3 Was A Mistake

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