The success of 20th Century Fox’s film “Deadpool” has blown the door wide open for a very specific type of film. The film’s unrivaled success as an R-rated comic book adaptation is a historical moment in film history: no R-rated film, comic book-themed or otherwise, has brought in the big bucks like “Deadpool” has.
Given the nature of Hollywood’s copycat mentality, this worries me.
When something as different as “Deadpool” is released and makes a lot of money, the rest of Hollywood is bound to take notice and try to deliver something similar until every option available has been exhausted. Due to the historical significance of the film’s R-rating, it is safe to assume that the rest of Hollywood will instantly connect that to the film’s success.
Not weeks after “Deadpool” broke the system, Warner Bros. announced that an R-rated cut of the highly anticipated upcoming extravaganza “Batman V. Superman” will be released as a director’s cut DVD later this year.
Now, it would be silly to automatically assume that this move by Warner Bros. was solely due to the success of “Deadpool” given how much meticulous planning goes into making these types of films, but it certainly has people wondering if the film’s success is going to lead to big companies trying to piggyback off that notoriety by coming up with their own mature takes on beloved comic book characters.
This, however, is all speculation; there is no evidence that this will become a trend. Given Hollywood’s track record, though, it is not crazy to think that the movie industry will follow that path.
What the industry fails to recognize is that “Deadpool” was not a success because it included gore and sexual innuendos. “Deadpool” is a character that needs an R-rating to succeed. The appeal of the character is how little he cares about being politically correct or following the mold of other superhero franchises; the film itself is well aware of that fact.
Director Tim Miller and star Ryan Reynolds are not shy about expressing their collective deep love for the character and, due to this fact, they knew exactly when to play up the character’s raunchiness and when to cool it. “Deadpool” resonates with so many people because it dares to challenge the norms of the oversaturated superhero genre and delivers a refreshing vision of what can be done with these characters.
This has more to do with the nature of the character itself rather than the actual content that makes up the R-rating of the film.
Let me ask you this: does the world really need an R-rated take on beloved characters such as Batman and Superman? Would sex and violence make these characters more enjoyable and, by extension, more popular? My answer to that is a confident and resounding “no.”
Films such as “The Dark Knight” show that a more serious spin on a comic book character can be successfully done with a PG-13 rating. Characters like Batman, Superman, the X-Men, or the Avengers do not inherently call for more mature situations. I’m fearful that the success of “Deadpool” will make studios think that it is OK to create these characters for adult audiences when all that will do is taint what those characters stood for in the first place.
Now, “Deadpool” certainly was not the first R-rated comic book film to have success. Matthew Vaughn’s adaptations of “Kick-Ass” and “Kingsmen: The Secret Service” were moderately successful, R-rated comic book films. This was not due to the fact that audiences were seeing blood and sex intertwined with the child-friendly atmosphere of a comic book setting. Rather, these films were a success because they were done in a unique and enjoyable style that made them stand out, much like “Deadpool.” The source material called for the graphic violence and sex. It was not arbitrarily done, which is how it would be for an R-rated “Batman V. Superman.”
This is not to say that R-rated superhero films are not desired, but simply that the content has to make sense for that rating.
Here’s to hoping that big budget studios recognize this and do not flood an oversaturated market with nonsense like bathtub sex scenes between Lois Lane and Clark Kent or the Hulk transforming people into bloody piles of flesh.
