The DC Extended Universe may soon indulge in its darker side.
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Toby Emmerich, president and chief content officer of Warner Bros. Picture Group, isn’t ruling out the idea of the studio producing an R-rated movie in the future, telling Variety that he admires recent R-rated superhero hits Deadpool and Logan and sees the rating a possible way of differentiating DC’s movies from the family friendly fare of Marvel Studios.
“I would be surprised if we didn’t at some point make an R-rated DC movie,” Emmerich said, though he didn’t offer any kind of timetable for when that may happen.
To date, the only R-rated DC Comics movies to be released have been animated features: Batman: The Killing Joke, which had a limited theatrical run, and Justice League Dark, which was direct-to-video (excluding films like Watchmen, which was based on a DC Comics publication but not DC Comics universe characters, at least not at the time).
Since the release of Deadpool in 2016, the idea of R-rated superhero movies has been spreading in Hollywood. Fox showed that the concept can work without Ryan Reynolds’ irreverent humor with Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine sendoff movie, Logan, in March 2017.
Fox will double down on the R-rated film movement with Deadpool 2 in 2018 and likely with a third Deadpool movie and future X-Force spinoffs. Sony Pictures is also likely to get into the R-rated game with its upcoming Venom movie and possibly with the Silver and Black spinoff as well.
Looking to DC’s future, there are some movies already announced that could lend themselves to R ratings. Justice League Dark is due for a live-action adaptation, and if the animated version was rated R then it shouldn’t be hard to imagine the live-action version earning the same rating. Batman could go R-rated as well, depending on which direction the studio wants to take their most popular character, though the move would be risky. Some fans would argue that Suicide Squad should have aimed for an R-rating, and that could become the goal for the sequel or the Gotham City Sirens spinoff.
DC Film’s next release is Justice League, which currently has a 4.16 out 5 ComicBook.com User Anticipation Rating, making it the third most-anticipated upcoming comic book movie among ComicBook.com readers. Let us know how much you’re looking forward to Justice League by giving it your own ComicBook.com user anticipation rating below.
In Justice League, fueled by his restored faith in humanity and inspired by Superman’s selfless act, Bruce Wayne enlists the help of his newfound ally, Diana Prince, to face an even greater enemy. Together, Batman and Wonder Woman work quickly to find and recruit a team of metahumans to stand against this newly awakened threat. But despite the formation of this unprecedented league of heroes—Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg and The Flash—it may already be too late to save the planet from an assault of catastrophic proportions.
Justice League is directed by Zack Snyder, from a screenplay by Chris Terrio, based on a story by Snyder and Terrio, and stars Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot, Jason Momoa, Ezra Miller, Ray Fisher, Amy Adams, Willem Dafoe, Jesse Eisenberg, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, Connie Nielsen, J. K. Simmons, and Ciarán Hinds.
Justice League opens in theaters on Nov. 17, 2017.
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