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Wednesday, February 17, 2016

So Deadpool has been out less than a week and it's already changing the industry

This weekend you probably saw Deadpool. Your neighbor probably saw Deadpool. I saw Deadpool. It's a great, fun time at the movies despite my not knowing too much about the character (other than he breaks the Fourth Wall). But is its success (given its relatively small budget) a clarion call for other movies to take the plunge into rated-R? I guess so, because Wolverine 3 is going to be rated-R. So, is this a marketing ploy? Like how is it exactly that a studio can just decide a movie is going to be rated-R since (I think) the rating gets applied to a film by the MPAA after it's done, right? Or maybe film ratings are completely useless. It's possible both of these situations could be correct at the same time.

So naturally I have questions. What exactly is the new Wolverine going to be packed with? More blood? Because I know it can't necessarily be packed with more action because the last Wolverine was damn near wall-to-wall action. It kind of makes me think that Fox believes that "adult" is the new "dark and gritty" ala the Batman movies by Christopher Nolan. But is it really? Having seen Deadpool I can say that I don't think that movie could have been released as a PG-13 movie and kept it's cool. But would Wolverine really benefit from an R-rating? Are there that many tits that need to be displayed (or that many "F"-bombs that need to be dropped) in a story of our favorite mutant with bone claws?

Or maybe they want to borrow a page from Quentin Tarantino and take the films into some macabre, tongue-in-cheek place where limbs get severed and blood fountains upward like geysers from severed heads. I suppose that could be fun, but it's difficult to capture what gives Tarantino movies that special grittiness so that you can spot them from a mile away. It also makes me beg the question about the X-Men universe. Are we now going to have R-rated X-men movies? How can you possibly integrate characters like Deadpool into a pg-13 universe and not have the character lose all of its luster?

Meh. Maybe all of these changes are a sign that Fox is going to brand itself as the studio that has the dark and gritty characters. I suppose I don't care and I'm somewhat eager to see the result. I'm just surprised that Deadpool had the clout to change the way an entire industry does business.

9 comments:

  1. MPAA ratings are pretty inconsistent. Movies like The Kings Speech get an R rating for like one f bomb or something. Watchmen was R rated for graphic violence and Billy Crudups cock flopping around. Anyway I guess they figure R is the new PG13.

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  2. I don't think Deadpool is actually going to change the industry at all. PG (and 13) movies will always be the big money makers, so they're not going to quit doing that, and Marvel Studios is certainly not going to change up their style.

    However, with Wolverine, they had a hard time holding the last one to PG-13, so I can see them not applying the brakes on the next, though I haven't seen anything about an R-rated Wolvie movie. The one I saw them talking an R for is X-Force, which will have Deadpool in it, so that makes sense.

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  3. Well you know that some things are trendsetters that lead the way to new ground. Didn't see this, of course.

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  4. I haven't seen it yet and have been undecided whether or not I should.

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  5. I haven't seen it and probably won't ever see it, but going with an R rating is probably going to limit the audience.

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  6. Of course I haven't seen it yet 'cause I haven't even seen Star Wars yet. I really want to catch up on movies.

    I've heard complaints already that The Dead Pool is a hit because it's original, and Hollywood is obsessed with copying ad nauseum whatever is a hit instead of concentrating on being original, so next we'll see a bunch of Dead Pool ripoffs.

    Or maybe that's just me being cynical.

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  7. "It's possible both of these situations could be correct at the same time." <--Yeah, that. The MPAA is kinda arbitrary in its ratings and how it goes about it.

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  8. I doubt it changes much with the popular heroes but I hope it encourages them to take some chances with lesser known stories. I'd love to see an R rated Gotham City PD where they are caught in the middle between insane villains and vigilantes.

    While I really like how well Deadpool did I think its success was as much to fortunate timing as anything else. They released on Valentines Day weekend and were fortunate to have very little competition (Zoolander2??? Was the public really clamoring for a sequel?)

    By Saturday, word of mouth made Deadpool the movie to watch for the obligatory date night. It's this year's Fifty Shades of Grey.

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  9. The studios will take anything new and fresh and turn it into a cookie-cutter example for their next projects. Too bad.
    And Deadpool was great, btw.

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