Four of the six highest-grossing R-rated movies ever made might be comic book adaptations, but that doesn’t mean that throwing some swear words and gratuitous violence into the mix is a guarantee of commercial success as Birds of Prey found out earlier this year when it posted the lowest numbers in the DCEU’s history by quite a distance, leading to speculation that James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad might be toned down as a result.
That doesn’t seem to be the case, but it did raise more questions about how willing Marvel Studios would be to adopt the R-rated model for Deadpool 3, which wouldn’t usually be an issue given that the first two installments both made over $780 million globally. However, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has always been a PG-13 franchise, and the ‘if it ain’t broke’ approach has worked wonders so far.
Of course, Hugh Jackman’s last outing as Wolverine was very much an R-rated affair, and also happened to be one of the greatest comic book movies of all-time. And while a lot of people are of the opinion that the MCU would be much better off leaving the mutton-chopped mutant out entirely when it comes time to rebooting the X-Men, the character simply has far too much earning potential for that to happen.
We don’t yet know exactly what Marvel has planned for the hero, but tipster Mikey Sutton is now claiming that when Wolverine does enter the MCU, he’ll follow the precedent set and remain in the PG-13 realm. The insider says that as well as interacting with the X-Men, Wolvie will also headline his own solo series that will become integral to the franchise, and the higher ups apparently don’t want to rock the boat by alienating a massive portion of their audience or inviting direct comparisons to Logan.