There are plenty of questions that seem to surround the upcoming Spider-Man spin-off film, “Venom.” But two, in particular, seem to come up more than others. First, why the hell does this movie have a PG-13 rating? And secondly, when will Spider-Man and the rest of the Avengers show up? Tom Hardy is here with your answers. Well, he’s here to tell you what he thinks of the rating and any potential Avengers crossovers.
When asked by MTV about what question he gets asked more than anything about the film, Hardy opens up and says it’s about the movie’s rating. He explains:
“Is it going to be R-Rated? That’s the big question and the answers been answered, isn’t it? (It’s a 15 in the UK) and it’s a PG-13 in the states, but to be fair the thing can fulcrum into R-Rated and fulcrum into youth or children,” Hardy said. “My littlest ones, they watch Spider-Man and Venom quite comfortably and Venom toys appear and LEGO appear. So it’s not like they’re scared by him, and at the same time there’s a lot in the real estate that you can actually imbue with a complete sense of gratuitous ultra-violence if you really wanted to, and I think you’ve got the right people for that job if you want to push it, ‘cause that’s where I’d love to go with it.”
It’s clear that Hardy probably joined the project anticipating an R-rating. This is obvious considering the fact that everyone had been saying an R was virtually guaranteed, with director Ruben Fleischer saying so much. But yet, Sony gave the film a PG-13 in the US. The studio’s reason was clear — the potential money from an Avengers/MCU crossover.
As for if this is something Hardy has control over, he says, “But that’s above my pay grade.”
He then looks over at co-star Riz Ahmed and throws the idea of Ahmed asking for a crossover with the Avengers, saying, “Riz, maybe you can have a word?”
“You want me to talk to the Avengers and tell them you want to have a fight with them? That Venom wants to fight the Avengers?” answers Ahmed.
The two begin to discuss what the idea of what Venom might do if he met the Marvel superhero team. Long story short, the anti-hero would probably try to eat them. Well, that’s if he’s hungry. “And if he’s hungry, he might try to eat the Hulk. I think Venom and Hulk is a good match-up,” Ahmed says.
But even if the crossover with the Avengers doesn’t happen, Hardy is okay with that. “If not, we’re more than happy to stand alone. We have a Venom-verse and 900 characters to play with,” explains the actor.
We’ll see if “Venom” is good enough to warrant a crossover with Marvel Studios’ cash cow supergroup when the film hits theaters on October 5.
Until then, take a look at one group that wants Venom in this new ad from ESPN. It’s pretty hilarious…but not in a good way: