For years we’ve been told that Marvel Studios’ MCU character would not crossover with Sony Pictures’ separate cinematic universe that they are building. But, that doesn’t mean Sony Pictures can’t hope for something a little more. They would love to see characters from the MCU eventually crossover with their future movies!
They are already taking steps to try to pave the way if it ever does happen. One of those steps is to ensure their first film there cinematic universe, Venom, gets a PG-13 rating. If it got an R-rating, Marvel Studios might not want to play ball with them later on down the road. Variety reports:
The feeling is that will give the studio greater leeway for future installments that will feature Spider-Man, something “Venom” does not do. Any Spider-Man movie will carry a PG-13 rating because the wall-crawler is more family friendly, and if “Venom” is too dark and gory, it might preclude other film match-ups, not just with Peter Parker’s alter-ego, but also with other members of the extended Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).
Director Ruben Fleisher recently boasted about how they would be pushing the boundaries of the darkness and violence in comic book films with Venom. He teased:
“That’s the plan. It is not the plan, that’s the movie. Our movie wants to honor the comics as close as we can tonally. In the comics, he bites people’s heads off and eats brains. It would be weird to make a movie with Venom if he wasn’t doing that. We tried to honor it as closely as possible. This is definitely a darker, more violent, more vicious Marvel character than I think anyone’s ever seen before.”
So, I guess they aren’t going to push those boundaries enough into the R-rated territory. Are they going to push the PG-13 boundaries? With a PG-13 rating Venom definitely won’t be a darker “more violent” and “more vicious” Marvel character than we’ve seen before.
I’m both disappointed by the news and excited. On one hand, I wanted to see a hardcore R-rated Venom movie. But, it’s exciting to think that Spider-Man and other MCU characters could crossover into Sony’s future Marvel films.
What would you rather have? An R-rated Venom movie or the potential for MCU crossover films?