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‘Deadpool’ May Influence R-Rated Content For Comic Book Movies — Peyton Reed Jokes NC-17 Rating For ‘Ant-Man’ Sequel

By Tony Smejek
Published on: 04:22 PST, Feb 25, 2016

With the recent success of Deadpool, this movie could bring forth a whole new realm of an R-rated category of comic book movies. It was reported by Vulture to “open the door for a new kind of R-rated blockbuster.” Usually movies with such a mature rating doesn’t garner that much of a crowd, limiting the audience to more of a childless theater, but for some reason there are enough adults out there that populated the theater seats, and since the R rating does allow for an accompaniment by an adult, chances are the under-aged comic book fans came along for the parental Deadpool ride.

Since the Marvel movie did quite well financially as an R-rated movie, falling just under The Hangover 2, with The Passion of the Christ at No. 1. It was just above Beverly Hills Cop, according to Box Office Mojo.

In lieu of Deadpool’s success, Ant-Man director Peyton Reed took to Twitter to joke about Ant-Man and the Wasp being NC-17, according to ComicBook.com, with the Guardians of the Galaxy director responding in kind.

That being said, ComicBook.com was thinking that Deadpool could be influential in bringing forth other studios to join the ranks of mature comic book movie content. Though the movie was successful, it may be purely coincidental that Fox and Warner Brothers could have been influenced, but doesn’t admit as such. It does look like Deadpool’s success may have cinched it for mature audience acceptance.

Kevin Smith did a Deadpool piece on YouTube’s Fatman On Batman and pretty much said his piece.

“We got an R-rated f**kin’ solid gold proof that adults are the ones watching this s**t!”

Kevin’s co-hort, Marc Bernardin, talked about how Hollywood tends to go down the wrong path when learning the lessons of running with the success of a previous film. Comic book movies are no exception.

“That’s the problem that Hollywood is going to have with this success. Hollywood tends to take the wrong lessons from things like this.”

(Warning! Extreme language. Not safe for work.)

The focus which was emphasized here is that Hollywood could go down the wrong direction based on the Deadpool comic book movie’s success by saying the following to themselves.

“You know what?! We need more like joke-a-minute movies. We need more lots of nudity movies.
We can just push every movie that’s a comic book movie into Deadpool zone. Because
that works now.”

And that shouldn’t be the case as the point here is that it’s best to “commit to what the source material was.”

The Deadpool movie was even given accolades by director James Gunn, and gave a similar take as Bernardin on how this was demonstrated already with the success of Guardians of the Galaxy, according to Entertainment Weekly.

“It ‘wasn’t afraid to be fun’ or it ‘was colorful and funny’ etc etc etc. And next thing I know I hear of a hundred film projects being set up ‘like Guardians,’ and I start seeing dozens of trailers exactly like the Guardians trailer with a big pop song and a bunch of quips.”

Other films seem to be following suit with Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, which has been announced to be released on Blu-ray with an R rating, but will be PG-13 on the big screen. Then there is Hugh Jackman’s final Wolverine 3 film that was already planned as rated R and “not due to Deadpool“ either, according to SlashFilm.

Could this mean other more mature comic books like Lobo, Moon Knight, and Punisher come to light on the big screen in a rated R movie setting?

Deadpool is currently open in theaters and its third weekend has come and gone. As of last weekend the comic book movie brought forth nearly $500 million globally.

[Photo by Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images]

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