Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock totally destroys a helpless SWAT team in a violent but bloodless new clip from Sony’s Venom. The first installment in what Sony hopes will spawn a franchise of Spider-Man spinoff movies is currently tracking to be a huge hit, and may actually break the October opening weekend box office record currently held by the sci-fi drama Gravity.

Based on the Spider-Man character Venom, the movie follows journalist Eddie Brock as he encounters an alien entity that ultimately merges with him, turning him into a super-powered half-man/half-monster. The first Venom trailer dropped in July, and fans immediately began debating the look of the symbiote, while also arguing about every other little detail of the film (including Hardy’s voice, which the actor later admitted was inspired by Woody Allen among others). Since then, Sony has unleashed a marketing blitz that has even included an ESPN ad with Venom laying waste to a bunch of Raiders fans.

The newest Venom clip from Sony Pictures Entertainment is a lot less silly than the ESPN spot, and the CGI definitely looks a lot better. The clip (cleverly titled "To Protect and Sever") gives fans a good look at Eddie Brock transforming into Venom, while also teasing Venom’s super-human capabilities. The new footage also shows Venom going into total berserk mode as a crew of helpless SWAT team officers try in vain to take him down. See the clip below:


In the clip, the SWAT team officers think they have a bead on a bedraggled Eddie Brock, but the tables are turned when Brock calls for his symbiote mask and transforms into Venom. The officers open fire on Venom but of course their puny weapons are useless against the alien entity. Officers shoot machine guns at Venom and lob flash bombs at him, to no avail. An irritated Venom starts flinging SWAT team members around like rag dolls, and in one especially acrobatic moment, leaps up a building to grab a man from a balcony and toss him to the ground (the fabled Wilhelm scream is heard as the man plummets to the ground).

Things then get even wilder as Venom flies to the ground, picks up the man he just threw off the building and begins using the helpless man’s body to beat down the other SWAT team officers before tossing the poor guy through a window. It’s exactly the kind of carnage real Venom fans are surely hoping for from the movie. Of course, with Venom being rated PG-13 instead of R, the mayhem in the scene is entirely bloodless. Perhaps if there’s ever an unrated cut, scenes like the one above will be altered to show more graphic violence, but the action set to appear in the theatrical release clearly has been toned down in order to gain the PG-13 rating Sony sought.

KEY RELEASE DATES

Venom (2018) release date: Oct 05, 2018
Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) release date: Jul 05, 2019