Venom 3 could finally have a shot at landing an R-rating, thanks to Sony’s Kraven the Hunter. Venom first made his big-screen debut in 2007’s Spider-Man 3, played by Topher Grace, and later returned to cinemas in 2018’s Venom, with Tom Hardy portraying a new version of Eddie Brock and voicing his alien symbiote companion. Hardy reprised the role in the 2021 sequel Venom: Let There Be Carnage and even briefly crossed over into the Marvel Cinematic Universe with his end-credits cameo in Spider-Man: No Way Home that same year.
Despite mixed reviews, both Venom movies were big box office hits, while there has also been significant interest in Hardy’s Venom meeting Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man following his own No Way Home role. However, despite his reputation as Marvel’s “Lethal Protector” and predilection for devouring bad guys whole, Venom’s solo movies have stayed within PG-13 parameters from the beginning. That might finally change as a result of what Sony has in store for another of their upcoming Marvel villain movies, Kraven the Hunter.
Sony’s First R-Rated Spider-Man Franchise Movie Releases This Year
Kraven the Hunter‘s showcase at 2023’s Cinema Con confirmed that the movie would be R-rated, and several details revealed online have shown just how committed Sony is to that. These include Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Kraven dropping multiple F-bombs and shredding through many of his enemies with the kind of vicious abandon one would expect from the character. In going this direction, Sony is making a rather sharp about-face from their past Marvel villain movies.
While both Venom movies indulge in the one F-bomb permitted for a PG-13 rating, they also keep Venom’s rampaging just below the threshold to avoid stepping into an R (though Venom: Let There Be Carnage admittedly pushes its PG-13 fairly far). Meanwhile, Morbius is also relatively tame for a movie about Marvel’s famed Living Vampire. With Kraven the Hunter, it seems that Sony is eager to really put a stamp on its villain-centric movies by graduating them to R-rated territory.
Venom 3 Being Rated R Makes Sense For The Character
Venom is not called the “Lethal Protector” for nothing. Eddie Brock’s toxic bond with the Venom symbiote is one born inherently out of Eddie’s rage at being dealt a bad hand and getting a shot a payback with the powers granted to him by the alien he bonds with. Though the Venom movies take Spider-Man’s role in his origin story out of the equation, Eddie and Venom are still motivated by the feelings of two beings who feel cheated. That anger carries into Venom’s methods as a vigilante, but it is a side of him that his big-screen appearances have not really tapped into yet.
Above all else, Venom – anti-hero or not – is still an alien monster when all is said and done. Venom’s hunger for human brains and promise to devour the guilty is only as strong as his inclination to back that promise up. As a kind of culmination of Eddie and Venom’s story together, Venom 3 is the perfect opportunity to finally allow them to take the gloves off, especially with the precedent Kraven will be set in his movie for Sony’s collection of other Marvel villains to follow.
Will Venom 3 Actually Be Rated R?
As of now, whether Venom 3 will be rated R is unclear. Even without any built-in connection to Spider-Man, the first Venom movie was a towering box office hit with an $856.1 million haul. Venom: Let There Be Carnage pulled in a smaller total of $506.1 million, but strong numbers nonetheless considering the recovery process theaters were still undergoing from the COVID-19 pandemic at the time. With Venom’s third appearance (however minor) in the $1.9 billion earning Spider-Man: No Way Home, Sony could see Venom’s safest bet for box office success as being within a PG-13 sandbox.
That said, Sony’s decision for Kraven the Hunter to be rated R could signify that Sony intends the same for Venom 3. It would be an odd decision for Kraven the Hunter to be the only Sony Marvel movie to receive an R-rating. Moreover, with Let There Be Carnage‘s lower earnings but overall better reception compared to Venom, Sony might view an R-rating as a novelty for Venom 3 to stand out from its two predecessors. An R-rated Venom 3 could be just the winning formula for Eddie and Venom’s third dark tale, with Sony’s Kraven the Hunter to thank for opening that door.
