Yes, that’s right folks. The Piranha 3D footage considered too hot, too graphic, too gross for Comic-Con has shown up online — as these things often do. In case you didn’t know, Director Alexandre Aja was forced to rent a theater away from the Con in San Diego in order to share the footage with fans. I got a chance to see this footage and I can say from experience that it is, indeed, pretty graphic.

Not sure about the exact reasons for it not being able to be shown within the halls of Comic-Con, but I guess it makes a certain sense, especially if their was a chance children could be in the room. You don’t want your children watching any of this, believe me.

Or, my cynical self says it could just be a marketing stunt by the filmmakers. If it is, it’s a pretty good one. After all, we are talking about the film right now, aren’t we?

Anyway, enough talk, take a look at the footage after the jump. The complete Piranha 3D experience hits theaters on August 20th.

While most people will be rushing out to see Jim Cameron’s newest masterpiece, Avatar, for the spectacle, others may have a new reason to spend the extra money on seeing the film in 3-D. The Weinstein Company and Dimension Films have just announced that the very first trailer for next Spring’s Piranha 3D will debut exclusively before selected 3-D and 2-D showings of Avatar.

The film is the second trailer to the 1978 film Piranha, directed by Joe Dante (Gremlins 2: The New Batch), while the first two films were pretty cheap and a bit hokey, Dimension promises that the newest incarnation will be made to scare.

From acclaimed director Alexandre Aja (“The Hills Have Eyes”) comes the new action thriller PIRANHA 3D, in the latest eye-popping 3D technology. After a sudden underwater tremor sets free scores of the prehistoric man-eating fish, an unlikely group of strangers must band together to stop themselves from becoming fish food for the area’s new razor-toothed residents.