‘Venom’ “Producer” Avi Arad Nixes the Idea of an R-Rated Sequel

If there's one man who has been almost single handedly responsible for everything that sucks about the Spider-Man side of the Marvel Universe, it's producer Avi Arad. Not too long ago, he took the blame for Venom's boneheaded participation in Spider-Man 3, but don't worry, he's not about to stop his terrible decision making ways.

The good folks over at Collider recently posed a question to the Marvel producer, namely, is there a chance that a Venom sequel would be R-rated? The setup of Woody Harrelson's Carnage during the mid-credits sequence seems to point toward a much more violent adventure for Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock to deal with the next time out. However, Arad was quick to shoot the notion down, mainly because he still operates under the stupid—and demonstrably false—assumption that R-rated movies don't make as much money as PG-13 movies...

“When you hear Carnage, the only thing you can think of is R. But, if you know his story, if you really know the comic, there’s no R here. He’s a tortured soul. It’s not about what he does, because we never have to show the knife going from here to there, and the blood is pouring. What you have to show is, what is the motivation? Was he born like that, or [is he] someone we should feel for, because if you succeeding in making a villain someone you can feel for, jackpot.”

"If you really know the comic" is the kind of thing that someone with little to no knowledge of the comic almost always says in a situation like this. It's code for, allow me to assert my opinion for you in a way that makes it sound like fact.