The Venom movie may only be less than a month away, but there is still a lot unknown about the latest superhero (or should I say anti-hero) project. No one knows what rating the film will actually earn and middling advertisements have left fans wondering if it will even be any good.
While the latter question has yet to be answered, fans did receive some hint of what Venom will actually be rated. In an interview with the LA Times, director Ruben Fleischer opened up the film’s violence, sharing it will be “pushed to the hilt.” Fleischer also had this to share about the film’s tone:
“I feel like the casting, the aesthetic and the character himself all combine to make something that just feels different. Tonally it doesn’t remind you of other movies. It doesn’t feel like we just tried to do what everyone else is doing…. The DC universe is so aggressively dark and the Marvel universe has become so light. It was kind of exciting to craft something that just felt a little bit more real and grounded and in our world.”
Fleischer’s resume as a director is certainly hit-or-miss (from Zombieland to Gangster Squad), but it is encouraging to see the passion he has for the project. As far as executing action goes, he has proven himself to be a solid craftsman and getting to see the Venom character in pure rampage mode will be fun to watch regardless of the film’s quality.
As far as the rating debate goes, I think its beginning to take up too much attention. Similar to when A Good Day to Die Hard was released a few years back, fans focused more on the rating being a guiding point for the movie’s quality, which in that film’s case was a huge mistake. Even if Venom is rated R, it could still suck, and I hope Sony realizes that the film’s quality will speak much louder than its violence.