Todd McFarlane Hopes ‘Venom’ Is A Nasty R-Rated Movie

Sony’s upcoming Venom movie spinoff of the Spider-Man: Homecoming franchise has quickly amassed an official cast and creative team, after years in development limbo.

There are still a lot of unknowns when it comes to this Venom movie, but one thing fans are hoping is true is that Sony will be angling for a distinctly darker, Rated-R tone for the film. It’s an approach that has worked wonders for characters like Wolverine and Deadpool (who are dark, violent types), and Venom co-creator Todd McFarlane hopes his character will get similar treatment for his big screen debut.

Watch our interview with Todd McFarlane in the video above!

While at New York Comic Con, McFarlane said the following to us about the Venom movie rating:

“The only thing that’s warming my heart – I mean Tom Hardy is obviously a good choice – the thing that’s warming my heart is they’re saying it’s going to be R. So now the question is (and I haven’t read the script), like what does that mean? Because again, we’ve seen a couple “R movies” right? I mean we’ve seen Logan and we’ve seen Deadpool… So it would be interesting to me to see what they do. I mean I know what I would do if they gave me that character; I would scare the sh*t out of people with it. I don’t know if they want to go that far with it, cause again, you can sell a lot of shirts and toys if you don’t completely scare people, so it will be interesting.”

McFarlane goes on to strike up some controversy by saying he wasn’t impressed with Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight, as he didn’t think that Joker was as scary as many others made him out to be. McFarlane is currently making a movie based on his Spawn character that’s going to have a lot of darker horror influences, so we will then be able to see what his definition of “scary” really is.

Meanwhile, Venom continues to build its cast and creative team. Tom Hardy will star as Eddie Brock/Venom; Oscar-nominee Michelle Williams is the female lead; and comedic actress Jenny Slate is playing some kind of scientist character; and Star Wars actor Riz Ahmed is in talks for a role suspected to be Venom nemesis, Carnage. The script is being written by Fifty Shades screenwriter, Kelly Marcel.

Venom will be in theaters on October 5, 2018.