Venom hits theaters this weekend, but it already looks like fans and audiences will be missing out on a lot of material from the Lethal Protector’s standalone film.

During the film’s press junket, Tom Hardy, who plays the title character, revealed that there’s over 40 minutes of his favorite footage that have been cut out from the film. This includes, in his words, “mad puppeteering scenes” and “dark comedy scenes.” More on the story below.

Comics Explained spoke to both Hardy and co-star Riz Ahmed about Venom. During the interview, Hardy spoke about how there are some scenes that aren’t in this movie:

Well, the first thing that comes to mind is that these scenes were probably for the intended R-rated cut that many hoped they were getting. Of course there was no actual indication that the film was going to be released as an R-rated film. However, director Ruben Fleischer did hint at the fact that the film would take the violence to that line between PG-13 and R.

Now, it could be the case that Hardy was simply joking with Comics Explained. Talent has been known to do that during these junkets. However, given that the film is rated PG-13, it could explain why the film is being released as a softer and more toned down version than people thought they would be getting.

So given that there are these “30 to 40 minutes” cut out from the film, is there a possibility that we could get an R-rated cut, the same way that Deadpool 2 is getting a PG-13 cut? Or will this end up being something closer to fans asking for the Zack Snyder cut of Justice League, a cut that simply does not exist? We won’t know for a while. However, if Venom is a big enough success, we could see fans asking to see the missing footage. Whether or not we would ever see that remains to be seen.

And quite honestly, I am very interested to see how the “mad puppeteering scenes” had an effect on the overall film and if the “dark comedy scenes” are anything like “turd in the wind.”

Venom hits theaters on October 5.

Trailer

[Source: Comics Explained YT]