Tom Hardy has famously been in favor of an R-rated Venom movie ever since the franchise launched. The star, who played Eddie Brock/Venom in the films, managed to deliver a hit series for Sony in spite of the fact that not only did they never go all-in on the violence and mayhem…but they’ve also spent those years trying and failing to launch other Spider-Man-adjacent franchises with both Morbius and Madame Web. The third and final installment in Hardy’s franchise — which the actor has said will be his last ride with the symbiote — came out in theaters this weekend and grossed $51 million at the domestic box office, a franchise low.
Inevitably, there will be fans and critics who point to the movie’s PG-13 rating as a source for consternation, and there are plenty of reasons for that. Ignoring the fact that Hardy himself has always wanted an R-rated Venom that leans a bit more into the horror inherent to the antihero, there are some other factors, too.
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The year’s highest-grossing movie is Deadpool & Wolverine, the third installment in what is presumed to be a trilogy for Ryan Reynolds’s take on the Merc With a Mouth. Whether that movie would be rated R was actually kind of up-in-the-air (at least in the fans’ imaginations) for a while, because it’s the first Deadpool movie made since Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox. Ultimately, according to both Reynolds and Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige, there was never any serious consideration given to a PG-13 Deadpool movie.
Still, there was reason to question it. Marvel Studios proper had never released an R-rated superhero movie before, and the last Fox/Marvel joint that was rated R came in the form of Logan in 2017. The oft-delayed New Mutants was, at one point, rumored to be a lot more horror-tinged, and reportedly there was a cut at one point that likely would have drawn an R rating. 20th Century Studios wasn’t into it, though, and made sure it came out as a PG-13 film.
Cycling back a moment — Logan. That movie, like Venom: The Last Dance, was the third installment in a trilogy, where the previous two installments had both been rated PG-13. Logan earned around $615 million at the global box office, easily becoming the highest-grossing installment in the trilogy. It was the only Wolverine solo movie to earn more than $200 million at the domestic box office, and the only one to make over $500 million worldwide.
Certainly, Logan feels like the clearest example to go by — although the similarities are kind of limited. Logan earned $600 million and an Oscar nomination — but in doing so, it still underperformed both of the first Venom movie, which actually made $856 million worldwide. Granted, Venom: Let There Be Carnage did significantly worse at the international box office…but that movie also opened huge in the U.S. and then went on to gross almost exactly as much at the domestic box office as Venom did.
And here’s the thing: both fan and critical reviews of Venom: Let There Be Carnage have pointed out that the movie stretches its PG-13 as far as it will go. It’s difficult to judge whether an R-rating would significantly change the movie’s box office prospects…but it doesn’t feel like it would have changed much about the movie itself.
With poor reviews and a franchise-low B- CinemaScore from moviegoers, it feels like it would have taken real, material changes — not just a couple more brains and a slobbering, maniac version of Venom — to have materially changed the movie’s box office prospects.
That said…should the have done it anyway? Forget the financial side, should they have gone all the way to an R rating just because that’s what Tom Hardy (and many of the franchise’s most vocal fans) wanted?
Well, your mileage may vary on that. It doesn’t seem like an R rating would have changed much about the movie’s story, execution, of box office draw. So, should they have done it just for the benefit of a handful of people who would have loved it?
Maybe.
Venom isn’t Deadpool, but it has also never been a normal superhero franchise. The first movie surprised everyone by being shockingly entertaining and incredibly weird and silly. Hardy knew exactly what kind of movie he was in, and it was that aspect — the weird, campy, wild energy — that made the Venom movies so beloved.
If an R rating could have helped them go one step farther in its final outing, embracing the weird and wild in a way they hadn’t before, that could have been pretty interesting. Maybe word-of-mouth would have boosted the box office beyond the first week.
Should Venom: The Last Dance have been an R-rated movie? Sound off on social media and tag @comicbook to let us know your thoughts. Or if you haven’t seen it yet, go catch Venom: The Last Dance while it’s still in theaters.
