Sony‘s new animated Venom movie may be ditching a key component from the Tom Hardy-led live-action trilogy that was never a hit with the Marvel fandom.
Last Friday, news came out that Sony had tapped Final Destination Bloodlines’ Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein to direct an animated Venom movie. Amy Pascal, Avi Arad, and Matt Tolmach, who all worked on the live-action Venom trilogy, will produce the feature, as will Hardy, who starred as Eddie Brock/Venom in the movies.
The new Venom movie will boldly go where no animated Spider-Man movie has gone before
Trusted scooper Daniel Richtman is reporting on X that the animated Venom movie is targeting an R rating. This would make it the first Venom movie to earn that MPA rating, as the previous live-action trilogy was rated PG-13. It will also be Sony’s second R-rated Spider-Man movie after 2024’s Kraven the Hunter.
Venom fans have long hoped that the character would receive an R-rated movie, given that, while heroic, he is far more violent than Spider-Man and is not afraid to use lethal force to achieve justice. An R-rating will also help differentiate Venom from Sony’s animated Spider-Verse movies, which have so far earned PG-13 ratings.
It’s no surprise that Sony wants another Venom movie. The live-action trilogy, consisting of 2018’s Venom, 2021’s Let There Be Carnage, and 2024’s The Last Dance, was by far the most successful franchise within Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. The movies collectively grossed over $1.8 billion worldwide, despite receiving largely mixed reviews from critics.
While Hardy has been rumored to appear in Avengers: Secret Wars and Spider-Man: Brand New Day as Venom, he has never been officially confirmed, with reports of his rumored involvement having died down significantly over the last year.
Even without a live-action Venom return for Hardy, Sony has plenty of live-action Spider-Man content on the way, such as the aforementioned Brand New Day. Spider-Noir, an eight-episode Prime Video series based on Spider-Man Noir, will be released this May, starring Nicolas Cage as Ben Reilly/The Spider.
The animated Venom movie does not yet have a release window.
