Moviefone Editorial

Tag: tom-hardy

  • Box Office: Why ‘Venom’ Doubled ‘A Star Is Born’ Opening in Best October Weekend Ever

    Box Office: Why ‘Venom’ Doubled ‘A Star Is Born’ Opening in Best October Weekend Ever

    Venom, A Star Is Born
    Sony/Warner Bros.

    The good news is October just had its best weekend ever with more than $170 million in ticket sales.

    That’s thanks to BOTH Sony’s “Venom” and Warner Bros.’s “A Star Is Born.”

    And maybe their respective fans can bond over that instead of competing so viciously.

    Tom Hardy‘s Marvel anti-hero picked up $80,030,000 at the October 5-7 domestic box office. That easily set a new October record, topping the “Gravity” debut of $55.7 million.

    Weekend estimates also show Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga‘s musical picked up $41,250,000.

    A Star Is Born
    Warner Bros.

    Everyone else in the top 10 and beyond was way down the line — No. 10 was “The Predator” with only $900,000, for comparison. But at least No. 3 “Smallfoot” and No. 4 “Night School” were in eight digits — at $14.9 million and $12.75 million respectively.

    “A Star Is Born” has an A CinemaScore from viewers, high praise from critics, adoring Gaga fans, and music lovers calling the soundtrack an instant classic.

    “Venom” has a B+ CinemaScore from moviegoers, and almost no praise from critics. But it made about twice as much as “A Star Is Born.”

    Why?

    Venom
    Sony Pictures Entertainment

    Well, the most obvious answer is because “Venom” is a comic book movie following a Marvel character in the Spider-Man universe. Never mind that it’s not connected to Tom Holland‘s Marvel Cinematic Universe at this point, and Spider-Man isn’t in the movie. It’s still a Marvel movie, starring popular Tom Hardy, and it made more than “Ant-Man and the Wasp” did in its domestic opening.

    “Venom” also has a much, much higher Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score than critical score, and the Audience Rating is actually slightly higher for “Venom” than “A Star Is Born.” (IMDb users rated “A Star Is Born” much higher than “Venom.”) That could be from “Venom” fan trolling in response to the “A Star Is Born” trolling. Or it could be just another example of the very real fan/critic divide.

    Sony

    “Venom” may not be in the MCU (yet) but it followed the MCU’s path of PG-13 movies instead of R. That’s in hope of future MCU crossovers with Tom Holland’s Peter Parker and company, and also to give this movie a better chance to do well. It worked!

    “Venom” is the debut of Sony’s Marvel Universe, and it’s a strong enough start to expect to see more. In addition to the $80 million domestic tally, “Venom” also picked up a hefty $125.2 million overseas for a current worldwide total of $205,230,000.

    According to Deadline, “Venom” marks Sony’s seventh best domestic opening of all-time behind “Spider-Man 3” ($151.1M) — which also featured Eddie Brock/Venom, as played by Topher Grace; “Spider-Man: Homecoming” ($117M) – a team-up with Marvel Studios; “Spider-Man” ($114.8M); “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” ($91.6M); the Bond film “Skyfall” ($88.3M); and “Spider-Man 2” ($88.1M).

    Spider-Man 3, Topher Grace as Eddie Brock/Venom
    Sony

    “A Star Is Born” made $42.6 million this week, if you count the early screenings. But even without them, it’s WB’s second biggest October opening after “Gravity” ($55.7M), which went on to win seven Oscars.

    “A Star Is Born” is a musical romantic dramedy, but it ended up with the R rating that many “Venom” fans wanted for that film. The musical still did fantastic in its opening — for its genre, for this time of year, for anything — but without an R it would’ve picked up even more money.

    There are also run times and theater counts to consider. “Venom” is 1 hour 52 minutes, with “A Star Is Born” at 2 hours 15 minutes. Shorter films can play more times in a given theater in a given day. “Venom” was given 4,250 screens to play with. “A Star Is Born” had 3,686. The per-screen average for “Venom” was $18,831 vs. “A Star Is Born” with $11,191.

    It’s kind of a shame “A Star Is Born” didn’t open last week, when “Night School” made headlines for topping the box office with only $28 million. Or the week before when “The House With a Clock in Its Walls” was No. 1 with $26.6 million.

    WB

    “A Star Is Born” also topped the money “The Predator” made in mid-September for its opening (in more theaters). “The Nun” made $53.5M when it opened — which is more than “A Star Is Born,” even though it too was rated R and opened on 3,876 screens. You just can’t top a nasty nun; it’s gospel truth.

    Here are the weekend estimates for October 5-7:

    1. “Venom” – $80,030,000
    2. “A Star Is Born” – $41,250,000
    3. “Smallfoot” – $14,900,000
    4. “Night School” – $12,275,000
    5. “The House With a Clock in Its Walls” – $7,295,000
    6. “A Simple Favor” – $3,435,000
    7. “The Nun” – $2,610,000
    8. “Hell Fest” – $2,075,000
    9. “Crazy Rich Asians” – $2,060,000
    10. “The Predator” – $900,000

    What’s next?

    Next up we have “First Man” and “Bad Times at the El Royale” on October 12.

    [Via: Deadline, Box Office Mojo, Variety]

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  • ‘Venom’ Is Already Breaking Box-Office Records

    ‘Venom’ Is Already Breaking Box-Office Records

    Sony

    Critics gave “Venom” a trouncing, but that didn’t stop the Tom Hardy-starring film from landing an all-time best October opening night.

    According to Boxofficemojo.com, “Venom” took in $10 million from Thursday night previews at 3,543 locations. The beats “Paranormal Activity 3,” which earned $8 million in previews and $52.6 million in its first weekend in 2011.

    Boxofficemojo. com reports that Sony is expecting a $55 million opening, but Deadline projects “Venom”‘s opening weekend take could be as high as $65 or $70 million.

    It looks likely to beat “Gravity,” which set a best October opening in 2013 with $55.7 million.

    Meanwhile, Oscar bait “A Star is Born” is doing quite well with a projected $41 million opening.

    Together, both films will probably exceed the weekend in October 2015 when “The Martian” opened with $54 million, followed by “Hotel Transylvania 2” with $33 million and “Sicario” with $12 million.

    [Via Boxofficemojo.com and Deadline]

  • ‘Venom’ Review: It’s the ‘WTF’ of Comic Book Movies

    ‘Venom’ Review: It’s the ‘WTF’ of Comic Book Movies

    Sony

    If, for some reason, you miss the superhero adaptations of the 1990s and early 2000s, “Venom” might be right for you.

    It feels like a movie that is largely unaware of the progress that has been made to tell stories that are both authentic to their source material and sophisticated enough for audiences unfamiliar with that material to experience them in a real way. That it stars Tom Hardy and Michelle Williams, two of the most gifted and consistently interesting actors in Hollywood, makes it an additional curio, but one assumes that the second or third homes they purchased with their paychecks was worth the experience of making this misguided, gobsmacking mess.

    Hardy plays Eddie Brock, a San Francisco investigative journalist who scuttles his job and his relationship after ambushing Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed, “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”) with confidential information stolen from his fiancée, attorney Anne (Williams), during what was supposed to be a puff piece interview with the billionaire industrialist. Six months later, a broke and alone Eddie has abandoned reporting for the solace of the bottom of a bottle, but when Life Foundation scientist Dr. Dora Skirth (Jenny Slate) contacts him with evidence that Drake is testing alien biology on poor and homeless subjects — merging them with “symbiotes” — he reluctantly agrees to see for himself.

    During his visit to the Life Foundation, Eddie is infected with a symbiote of his own, a creature called Venom. It bestows him with incredible powers, but as he soon learns, Venom expects to use Eddie’s body for its own destructive purposes. As Life Foundation foot soldiers come to retrieve the escaped alien, Eddie and Venom forge a tenuous bond via an ongoing internal dialogue, even if — outwardly — it seems like the poor human is certifiably crazy. But each is forced to decide what side they are on, and what is worth fighting for, when the duo discovers that another symbiote, Riot, has bonded with Drake and intends to turn Earth into a host planet for his species to consume.

    Sony

    One of the reasons that Hardy took the role of Eddie Brock/ Venom was reportedly because his son was a big fan of the character, but notwithstanding the anecdotal charm of that decision, it doesn’t seem enough for an actor of his caliber, and certainly given the bizarrely uneven effort he puts into his performance. Indeed, it’s hard not to evaluate the film in light of many comments from many of the people who made it — especially director Ruben Fleischer, who vacillated between saying the film was always going to be R- and PG-13-rated, and hedged in recent interviews about how deliberately funny it’s supposed to be — since the end result is stupefyingly incomprehensible.

    I mean, Hardy is the literal face of this anti-hero origin story, but its failure is not his fault; that the film (and his character’s journey) intermittently resembles “Teen Wolf” and “Liar Liar” (complete with Hardy channeling Carrey’s manic energy) explicitly feels like the byproduct of the worst sort of committee thinking.

    That said, if by chance one developed a misbegotten affection for the Andrew Garfield-Marc Webb “Amazing Spider-Man” movies (which, like this, it’s no coincidence that Sony produced largely independently of Marvel), then you might actually like “Venom.” It feels as if the studio executives saw the reactions to those films and tried to just maximize superhero CGI stuff in this, eliminating anything resembling mythology or character development. It’s kind of astonishing how bad both Hardy and Williams (and Ahmed, for that matter) are in this movie, but Eddie and Anne are barely one-dimensional characters with almost nothing of substance to do. The script, by Jeff Pinkner, Scott Rosenberg, and Kelly Marcel, is painfully anemic whenever it isn’t serving as a delivery system for symbiote-driven CGI, leaving the actors to improvise and react to developments and events that never bother to be tethered to reality, much less basic logic.

    Even as a person who read comics during the character’s heyday, Fleischer’s film leaves a lot of lingering questions, but in retrospect, they seem unimportant in the grand scheme of whatever cinematic universe Sony is trying to create. (That I can remember just a few of them feels like one of the few victories of this noisy, ugly, disjointed movie.) In which case it’s hard to decide whether you want this movie to fail or succeed; if it follows in the footsteps of the Webb “Spider-Man” movies and “fails,” for example, perhaps Sony will hand the reins back over to Marvel to do with this character what they did with “Homecoming.”

    But if it succeeds, the Spider-Verse may finally get its own “Batman and Robin,” and I suppose that even after hating “Venom” from start to finish, I would be curious what that might look like.

  • ‘Venom’ Director Ruben Fleischer Reveals Why Tom Holland’s Spider-Man Isn’t In the Movie

    ‘Venom’ Director Ruben Fleischer Reveals Why Tom Holland’s Spider-Man Isn’t In the Movie

     

    Sony

    “Venom” has landed.

    The famous Marvel villain, first introduced in “The Amazing Spider-Man” issue 300 (way back in May 1988), has made it on screen before, more than ten years ago in Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man 3.” But in that film, he was little more than a cameo in an already overstuffed piñata of a Spider-Man movie; fans wanted a movie exclusively devoted to the alien symbiote and his human host Eddie Brock. And now, finally, they have it.

    In the film (opening nationwide on Friday), Brock (played by Tom Hardy) is an intrepid reporter who is looking into the shading dealings of a technology company run by Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), as a more-openly-evil Elon Musk. This gets him fired, of course, but his quest for answers also exposes him to the alien symbiote known as Venom (also Hardy). While he’s not exactly a hero, the two personalities work to stop Drake from unleashing unimaginable horror on the world.

    And as difficult as preventing the apocalypse must be, it was probably equally painful to bring the character to the big screen, a job that fell directly on director Ruben Fleischer. We got to sit down with Fleischer and talk to him about what it was like bringing Venom to the big screen, especially without mentioning everybody’s favorite neighborhood wall crawler.

    Moviefone: You’re somebody whose name is always brought up for these big franchise movies, but — until now — you’d still never done one. What made you finally commit to “Venom?”

    Fleisher: What got me really excited about this movie was that we were doing something new. I felt with “Venom,” we had the opportunity to launch a whole new world, a whole new character. Beyond the fact that I had loved the character from the comics for a long time, and think he’s one of the most cool, bad ass characters from the comics, it was the idea for me of doing something new.

    Marvel so knows what they’re doing, and DC has such a defined aesthetic, it was fun to get to create something new. That was the driving principle of this film, was to just do something that felt a little different from everything else. And that’s something that’s obvious in the tagline, which is, “The world has enough superheroes. Embracing the antihero nature of the character, to the aesthetic of the film, which I’m really proud of. I think the tone is really distinctive in terms of that horror/comedy/thriller/action vibe that it lives in.

    The tone is definitely distinct. Did you do any experimenting to find that balance?

    From the original script, there was always a lot of personality to Venom. And even from the comics, you have this huge, hulking, scary figure — with giant teeth and whatnot — but he always had great lines. He would always say, “Mmm snacks!” He was always really funny. So I wanted to do justice to the comics and have a mix of tones. I think that’s ultimately why people love him; you can have this scary, menacing character, but it’s undercut by that goofy tongue or the great lines he has or his relationship with Eddie. And for me, that [tonal mixture] was always inherent to the film from its inception.

    Sony

    Was there anything that you looked to for inspiration? There definitely seems to be an “American Werewolf in London”-vibe to some of it.

    You hit the nail on the head, both in terms of its mixture of horror and comedy. But it’s also the story of somebody who is possessed by something and he doesn’t really know what it is and it becomes a mental breakdown. The werewolf was a great metaphor for Venom, in the way that a human is possessed by something else and physically transforms. The big difference is in the werewolf model, usually the human goes to sleep and the werewolf comes out. When the human is awake, the werewolf isn’t talking to him. But true to the Venom comics, it’s always about the relationship between the two. They’re always talking to each other, whether Venom is in Eddie or Eddie is in Venom. Even those scenes from the comics where Venom comes out and talks to Eddie directly, it’s all about their relationship.

    Obviously, Venom is heavily indebted to Spider-Man. Was there ever any talk of integrating that universe into this? We saw those set photos of Tom Holland.

    Those aren’t real.

    Really?

    Yeah.

    So there was never Spider-Man as a part of “Venom?”

    From its inception, at least as long as I’ve been a part of it, there was always a defined rule — no Spider-Man. The challenge, obviously, is that in the comics he’s so defined by Spider-Man. But because of “Spider-Man 3,” we kind of saw the true-to-the-comics version and — because of corporate stuff I don’t understand and probably shouldn’t talk about — we couldn’t use Spider-Man in this movie. So that put the onus upon us to create something original.

    So I approached the film as the kind of “Ultimate” version of Venom. That’s what my guiding principle was, reimagining a different origin, reimagining whether it was the Life Foundation — pulling things from the canon of the Spider-Man universe, but making him ours, and allowing Eddie and Venom’s story to stand on their own two feet.

    Were there incredibly strict guidelines? It’s interesting to see Venom and not see the white spider on his chest.

    We couldn’t use Spider-Man, so that was the ultimate. But maybe we could have used the spider on his chest, but it doesn’t make sense. If he didn’t originate from Spider-Man, it wouldn’t have made any sense. It would have been weird if you have an alien from outer space, occupying a rogue journalist, and — all of a sudden — there’s a spider on his chest. That’s not to say in the future, if ever Venom and Spider-Man were to meet and Venom would return to Spider-Man and come back to Eddie, then he could have the spider on his chest. But up until that point, I think he’s spider-less.

    Can you talk about the rating of this movie? People assumed it would be R from the get-go. Was that ever the case?

    We only ever intended this movie as a PG-13 movie. I’ve said in many interviews that we’re going to push the violence to the hilt and that this would be the most violent Marvel movie, because the character is one of the most violent. But it’s all within the PG-13. The Marvel movies are all PG-13. “The Dark Knight” is PG-13, and that was a huge reference point for me. Because “The Dark Knight” didn’t pull any punches and delivered a really gritty, violent film that was incredibly satisfying and it was PG-13. Some fans may have this blood thirst, I feel like we delivered a really aggressive version of “Venom” that didn’t compromise and is a really satisfying PG-13.

    Tom Hardy plays Eddie Brock, but also does the voice of Venom. What was that like?

    Early on in the process, as soon as he got involved, he’d record lines from the movie in Garage Band and started applying filters to it and would send them to me. He was just excited to create this character with audio. It’s amazing how much personality he’s able to imbue Venom with just his voice. Obviously, there’s the visual component, which I find really satisfying, but Tom was able to create so much interplay between Eddie and Venom and the dynamic of their relationship, all by himself.

    Sony

    You worked with cinematographer Matthew Libatique, who is amazing, but how did you come up with how this world would look?

    That’s one of my favorite things about the film. Matty is a true genius and a master at his art, having made everything from “Requiem for a Dream” to “Black Swan” to “Iron Man.” He’s just one of the best cinematographers working today. What was really important to me was that we distinguish our movie from Marvel and DC.

    I wanted it to feel singular in its aesthetic, and grounded and gritty and real in our modern world. I felt San Fransisco, as a backdrop, was cool and distinctive and we really embraced the anamorphic ’80s quality, whether it’s Spielberg or Carpenter — pick your favorite 80s anamorphic movie. We shot it in digital, but we used a lot of old 1970s lenses that give it a softness. It doesn’t feel super crisp and cartoony. It has a richness that gives it a nostalgic quality. Sometimes, digital can be overtly sharp and clean and we really wanted to dirty the image.

    We can’t talk about anything you see during the credits, but we can talk about what you can hear, specifically the fact that there’s a new Run the Jewels song during the credits.

    I’ve got to say that when I was prepping the movie, I made a playlist of “Venom” songs and it heavily featured Run the Jewels. There’s something about the darkness of their music and the content of their lyrics that I fully embraced and love. It was a dream when we got on the phone with El-P and Killer Mike to talk about what that song must be like. I just love the track that they delivered. It’s a banger. There’s a line, “Hardy har, you’re a laugh, I’m a Riot.” It’s so cool that they managed to get Riot in there. It was just a dream.

    I know you’re about to start in on “Zombieland 2,” but is a “Venom” sequel something you’d look forward to returning to?

    I don’t know. I’m just focused on “Zombieland 2” right now.

    “Venom” hits theaters Thursday night, opening wide on Friday, Oct. 5. 

  • Some ‘A Star Is Born’ Fans Are Trolling ‘Venom’ With Fake Bad Reviews

    Some ‘A Star Is Born’ Fans Are Trolling ‘Venom’ With Fake Bad Reviews

    Venom, A Star Is Born
    Sony/Warner Bros.

    Grab your popcorn, cinephiles, ’cause the drama this weekend should be epic. It’ll happen on and off screen as “Venom” and “A Star Is Born” go head-to-head at the October 5 box office.

    The social media embargo for Tom Hardy‘s “Venom” was just lifted, with critics posting their initial thoughts online. So far, not so good.

    But not so fast! Because some of those tweet “reviews” are just Lady Gaga fans having a laugh to try and get her musical “A Star Is Born” to top the box office this coming weekend. “A Star Is Born” is already 95 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes at this point, so it doesn’t really need any more help.

    This is not to say that “Venom” is being overly maligned, since “real” critics have been harsh, and you may or may not like it yourself. But it’s worth noting that there’s a campaign in motion to push “Venom” down — and then a backlash campaign to push “A Star Is Born” down.

    This is what our society has come to. It is clear we can’t just get along.

    BuzzFeed did a good job of collecting some of the suspicious tweets:

    https://twitter.com/NobodyInCali/status/1047015903148302336

    https://twitter.com/AtomicSpidey/status/1047018012300185600

    BuzzFeed News reached out to one of the users with an anti-“Venom” tweet referenced above. This person admitted they faked an anti-“Venom” tweet out of boredom, and as “a joke between two of my mutuals. We steal each others tweets.”

    BuzzFeed added that Lady Gaga’s fans have been known in the past two make fake accounts from stereotypical “Midwestern moms.” Like this obvious joke:

    https://twitter.com/AnneHarrisonMom/status/1047083723743727625

    Other Lady Gaga fan accounts have been jumping in with anti-“Venom” venom:

    https://twitter.com/TheFameJoanne/status/1047055534015356928

    Of course, some “Venom” defenders are chiming in that they’re looking forward to seeing the movie no matter what anyone else says:

    That one is kind of a backhand compliment, but “Venom” should find its own audience. For one, “Venom” is rated PG-13 and “A Star Is Born” is actually rated R, which might restrict some of its audience.

    We’ll see how this rather unexpected box office battle plays out when the estimates come in on Sunday. Will you head out to see either film? Or both?

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  • Tom Hardy Says His Favorite ‘Venom’ Scenes Were Cut From the Film

    Tom Hardy Says His Favorite ‘Venom’ Scenes Were Cut From the Film

    Sony

    The upcoming Marvel-Sony spinoff flick “Venom” waffled between shooting for an edgy R rating, or sticking with the more family-friendly PG-13, eventually opting for the latter. It remains to be seen how that decision will affect the final cut, but according to titular star Tom Hardy, the film is already working with less content — and without his favorite scenes.

    In an interview with ComicsExplained, Hardy was asked to name his favorite scene in the new flick, which follows the notorious Spider-Man villain, but isn’t connected to the MCU (for now, anyway). And as the actor tells it, there’s some pretty strange bonus content waiting in the wings for its eventual inclusion on the “Venom” home release.  (Skip to the 4:40 mark in the video below.)

    “They’re scenes that aren’t in this movie,” Hardy said of the moments he loved best. “There are like 30 to 40 minutes worth of scenes that aren’t in this movie… all of them. Mad puppeteering scenes, dark comedy scenes. You know what I mean? They just never made it in.”

    It’s hard to say if those particular moments would have affected the film’s rating. After all, how do you turn puppeteering into R-worthy material? (Aside from featuring foul-mouthed subjects, anyway.) But Hardy’s description certainly supports his earlier statements about the film leaning into a tragicomic tone.

    And by the way, lest you think Hardy is too broken up about those missing scenes, don’t worry: In his ComicsExplained interview, he joked with co-star Riz Ahmed that he’s now expecting someone to re-edit the clip with “The Sound of Silence” playing in the background, a nod to that infamous Ben Affleck “Batman v Superman” meme.

    Can someone turn that into a bonus “Venom” scene??

    “Venom” is due in theaters this Friday, October 5.

  • Tom Hardy Defends ‘Venom’ PG-13 Rating, and Pushes for Fight With ‘Avengers’

    Tom Hardy Defends ‘Venom’ PG-13 Rating, and Pushes for Fight With ‘Avengers’

    Sony

    Tom Hardy wants his Eddie Brock/Venom “to run with the established family” — meaning the Marvel Cinematic Universe family. The best way to get into that world is probably through a PG-13 rating, despite many comic book fans wanting an R-rated “Venom.”

    “Venom” co-stars Tom Hardy and Riz Ahmed talked to MTV International about Sony’s Marvel Comics film — which is separate from Marvel Studios’ Marvel Comics films with the “Avengers.” During the talk, Hardy tried to defend the PG-13 rating, and also pushed for a future crossover with the “Avengers.”

    Ahmed first talked about comic book fans being so hardcore, and asking them questions on the street about “Venom.”

    MTV International: “Is there a particular question fans have been asking the most about ‘Venom’?”

    Tom Hardy: “‘Is it going to be R-Rated?’ That’s the big question and the answers been answered, isn’t it?”

    Riz Ahmed: “It’s a 15 in the UK.”

    Tom Hardy: “And it’s a PG-13 in the States. But to be fair, the thing can fulcrum into R-Rated, and fulcrum into youth or children. My littlest ones, they watch Spider-Man and Venom quite comfortably and Venom toys appear and LEGO appear in my nostril in the morning, you know what I mean? So it’s not like they’re scared by him. And at the same time there’s a lot in the real estate that you can actually imbue with a complete sense of gratuitous violence if you really wanted to, and I think you’ve got the right people for that job if you want to push it. Of course that’s where I’d love to go with it. And I’d love to through all the Avengers as well with it. But that’s above my pay grade. Riz, maybe you could have a word.”

    Riz Ahmed: “You want me to talk to the Avengers and tell them you want to have a fight with them? That Venom wants to fight the Avengers.”

    Hardy put them out there for a crossover, but if it doesn’t happen, he thinks they can fight alone.

    Watch the full MTV video for more, including the breaking news that Tom Hardy is not actually obsessed with the angel emoji, because someone else runs his social media for him.

    “Venom” opens in theaters October 3.

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  • Tom Hardy Takes ‘Venom’ to Moscow

    Tom Hardy Takes ‘Venom’ to Moscow

    Venom/Twitter

    Tom Hardy took his new movie “Venom” to Moscow Friday, where the audience donned toothy Venom masks to view the comic-book movie.

    He also did the requisite photos with fans and even wore a fur hat. (Alas, it’s not as meme-worthy as Nicolas Cage’s famous furred-hat appearance, but still, we salute you, Tom.)

    Twitter

    And, FYI, “Venom” becomes “Behom” in Russian, thanks to the Cyrillic lettering.

    At the press conference, Hardy said, “The depiction of Venom, I think, has been extremely faithful to the comics. If we look at some of the images directly from comic book, they haven’t deviated in any [way]. If anything they’ve recreated certain elements accurately from the comic book.”

    While advanced buzz is not so great, Hardy has signed for two more “Venom” films, saying, “We’ll see what people’s responses are to it. I think it’s an awesome character.”

    “Venom” opens worldwide on October 3 and on October 5 in the U.S. and Canada.

    [Via Metro UK, Reuters]

  • ‘Venom’ Rating, Run Time, and Box Office Tracking Revealed

    ‘Venom’ Rating, Run Time, and Box Office Tracking Revealed

    Venom
    Sony Pictures Entertainment

    “Venom” is coming for your wallet. It’s best chance is through a PG-13 rating, so … goodbye R.

    Tickets are now on sale for Tom Hardy‘s standalone “Spider-Man” spinoff. The rating has been revealed as PG-13, with a run time of 1 hour, 52 minutes — perfect for multiple showings a day in thousands of theaters.

    “Venom” was once eyed for an R-rating, but last month it was previewed that Sony was more likely to go for PG-13. They want to leave the door open for possible future match-ups with young Spider-Man, and maybe some Marvel Cinematic Universe crossovers. The MCU does not do R.

    Plus, they want money. Who doesn’t? But they especially want money to start building Sony’s Marvel Universe.  “Venom” is the first film in that universe, but there are more to come.

    So while a PG-13 rating will disappoint hardcore “Venom” fans, it will also give the film a better chance at the box office, which gives Sony’s Marvel Universe a better chance for future spinoff success.

    Look at “The Meg.” Jason Statham was open with his disappointment that the shark film was less gory and bloody than he signed on for. But it has made a killing at the box office with its PG-13 rating. The receipts don’t lie.

    “Venom” is already benefiting from its more family-friendly rating. According to Variety, early box office estimates show “Venom” opening in the $60 million to $65 million range. Sony went lower with predictions of $55-$60 million — so if it does better they can say it beat expectations, and if it opens low they can say that was expected.

    But as Variety noted, even if “Venom” opens toward the lower end of those predictions, it would still rank as the biggest October opening (not adjusted for inflation), topping the $55.8 million for “Gravity” in 2013.

    “Venom” opens in theaters October 5th.

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  • ‘Venom’ Probably Won’t Be Rated R

    ‘Venom’ Probably Won’t Be Rated R

    Sony

    Sony’s upcoming “Spider-Man” spinoff, “Venom,” looks pretty dark, but apparently it’s not going to lean into that vibe too far: The flick is reportedly no longer aiming for an R rating.

    That’s according to Variety, which reports that an R — which was to have been a first in the Marvel-Sony partnership — is “unlikely” at this point for “Venom,” which will instead “push the very limits of PG-13 without crossing over into a higher rating.” And you can thank your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man for that.

    Per Variety, Sony executives are worried about an R rating restricting future crossover potential into the world of Peter Parker and co., who have been part of the MCU for several films now. “Venom,” starring Tom Hardy as the titular villain, is currently totally separate from those heroes, and was originally aiming to play up the villain’s horror elements before eventually striking a compromise to also play up the some of the lighter elements of the gritty character.

    “The feeling is [the lower rating] will give the studio greater leeway for future installments that will feature Spider-Man,” Variety reports. ” … 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.”

    While that’s certainly disappointing from a creative standpoint, it does make the most financial sense for Sony. We’ll just have to see if fans are understanding about the compromise.

    “Venom” is due in theaters on October 5.

    [via: Variety]