Last year, 20th Century Fox took a huge gamble by avoiding the usual PG-13 route with its superhero blockbuster Deadpool – a move that paid off in spades when it became the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time with $760 million worldwide.
Fox has since proven it wasn’t a one-off fluke, with this month’s Wolverine solo movie Logan enjoying huge critical and commercial success; as you’d expect, other studios are already softening their stance on releasing R-rated movies, and while it would seem unlikely that Marvel will follow suit, a new rumour suggests Warner Bros. is not averse to doing so with the DC Extended Universe.
If El Mayime of The Wrap is to be believed, a “well-placed insider” at DC Films (presumably a different “well-placed insider” to the one who fed him all the duff Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad info) responded “One hundred percent yes, with the right character(s)” when asked about the possibility of an R-rated DC movie.
Warner Bros. has already shown it isn’t averse to R-rated material (see the Ultimate Edition of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and the animated movies Batman: The Killing Joke and Justice League Dark), and I’m sure there are plenty of fans who’d like to see the studio going down the R-rated route for something like The Batman.
However, given the sketchy nature of the source – and producer Charles Roven’s post-Deadpool comments that future DC movies will likely remain PG-13, I wouldn’t hold your breath for an R-rated The Batman just yet.
Would you like to see the DCEU going down the R-rated route, and for which characters? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below…
Originally published March 10, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
