Warner Bros. To Stop Making R-rated Superhero Films After Middling ‘Watchmen’ Box Office Showing?
It’s just a rumor at this point.
But it makes sense. The top 4 grossing films in 2008—Dark Knight, Iron Man, Indy Jones, Hancock—were PG-13. With everything you can get away with in PG-13 these days, you loose little by avoiding a hard R and gain so much in terms of available audience. For example, the violence in ‘Dark Knight’ and the violence I’ve seen in early ‘Terminator Salavtion’ footage is on par with any of the violence in ‘Watchmen.’ All that’s missing is tits.
In other words, had ‘Watchmen’ covered more skin during the WORST SEX SCENE OF 2009 and cropped out that blue dong, we might all be celebrating the box office success of a beloved graphic novel rather than lamenting its less-than-stellar performance (which really we all should have expected, given its rating; none of the top 10 grossing films from 2008 were R and you’d have to go to #17 to find an R-rated action flick). If I’m a movie studio, I’d let the fanboys complain all they want about any excisions or softening in source material, because they’re still not going to understand the economics of spending hundreds of millions of dollars to make and market a film and what it takes to recoup that investment and (hopefully!) turn a profit. You want Noah Baumbach to direct your next beloved comic book adaptation with a $5 million budget? Sweet!
‘Terminator Salvation’ is going to be huge. ‘Star Trek’ is going to be huge. ‘Transformers” Revenge of the Fallen’ is going to be huge. Why? Because they’re that much better than ‘Watchmen’? Because those existing entertainment properties are that much more popular than ‘Watchmen’? Or because they’re not rated PG-13? (don’t believe ANY rumors that ‘Terminator’ will be R—not…a…chance)
Again, make all the “staying true to the spirit” arguments you want, but if you’re keen on big budgets movies with huge sets and tons of awesome CGI effects, you better not complain about a firm commitment from studios to make only PG-13 tent pole movies from now on.
