8 Superheroes That Should Go R-Rated Next

Deadpool, 20th Century Fox's foul-mouthed and borderline groundbreaking superhero movie, has so far made over $700 million worldwide. Meanwhile, Netflix's series Daredevil has just returned for an even bloodier second season, and it's generating more hype than ever before. Predictably, thanks to these projects' enormous success, Hollywood is looking to jump on the bandwagon and make a number of its upcoming superhero movies R-rated. Marvel Studios has flat-out refused to go R, but some superhero joints on the 2016/2017 slate are already getting in on the action. Batman V Superman is unfortunately PG-13, but when it's released on home video the film will arrive in a longer, R-rated cut, something unthinkable prior to the success of Deadpool. It can surely only be a matter of time before other superhero properties start to follow suit, and here are eight characters that would do well to go R-rated next. 8) Batman If Hollywood ever wants a Batman movie that reflects some of the grungier later comics, the studios need only look to Darren Aronofsky. The Noah and Black Swan director was for a time developing his own Batman project before Christopher Nolan came along, and while Nolan definitely took a more grounded approach than previous Bat-directors, nothing in his Dark Knight trilogy comes close to the family-unfriendly story Aronofsky was planning. In Aronofsky's Batman: Year One (adapted from the comic by Frank Miller, who thought that Aronofsky's concept was too dark), Catwoman works in a brothel, Alfred is a hard-ass mechanic and Bruce Wayne is a penniless orphan. There's a noir-ish voiceover. There are F-bombs and hardcore violence. Jim Gordon is suicidal and Bruce is on medication for mental health issues. It could never have been made in the early 00s when the script was written, but now? Warner Bros. needs to start dialling Aronofsky for their next Batman standalone. 7) Iron Man After a good eight years spent playing the character, Robert Downey Jr. has announced there will be no more Iron Man movies for him. It indicates the 50-year-old may be coming to the end of his time playing Tony Stark, and it means Marvel now has two options to consider: eventually discontinue the character when Downey bows out, or replace the actor and reboot the story. Considering Hollywood's unwillingness to cease milking the cash cow while there's still money to be made, you can bet they'll just recast and start over. But this needn't be a bad thing. The main reason RDJ's Iron Man has been so entertaining is that his take on the character is so irreverent and self-assured. If Marvel wanted to mix it up for a unique interpretation, a fresh Iron Man could bring in to play some of the darker elements from the comics. Iron Man 3 director Shane Black even foresees a future instalment tackling the Demon in a Bottle storyline, which deals with Tony Stark's alcoholism and depression. For the uninitiated, this is considered the definitive Iron Man story, and an R-rating could certainly bring us a faithful adaptation. 6) Suicide Squad It's hard to believe Warner Bros. hasn't already decided to take Suicide Squad down the R-rated route. It's an entire movie filled with murderous villains, revolving around a plan for the bad guys to take out an even worse bad guy (apparently the most unhinged on-screen Joker to date) in order for the bad guys to win their freedom, like a comic book version of the Dirty Dozen. Surely nothing else on the current DC/Warner Bros. slate would benefit more from an R-rated adaptation than Suicide Squad. The graphic novels can be nihilistic displays of violence, with the mischievously sinister tone definitely more suitable for older fans. The movie's producer Charles Roven had said that Suicide Squad would be PG-13 in order to fit into the "tonally consistent" DC Cinematic Universe, but in the wake of Deadpool, and with Batman V Superman going R on home video, tonal consistency is out the window. Expect the inevitable Suicide Squad sequel to be more adult-oriented. 5) Hellboy Guillermo del Toro promises that the long-developing Hellboy III will soon fit somewhere in his schedule of dozens of planned movies. While there's been little real movement of late, Ron Perlman - Anung Un Rama himself - last year offered tantalizing details of what to expect. In short, the beast of the Apocalypse returns to our screens to destroy civilization. With the superhero movie newly freed of obligatory PG-13 restrictions post-Deadpool, it sounds like the "fucked up" (Perlman's words) Hellboy III could fully embrace this new world. Del Toro's two previous Hellboy movies are borderline Rs, revelling in horror and fantasy bloodshed, while the Mexican auteur has always worked best when freed up by the R rating. If del Toro returned with the big red guy now, he'd be coming home to an industry suddenly more suited to his pulpy bloody style. Just imagine the guy behind Pan's Labyrinth and Crimson Peak bringing that same unbridled R-rated imagination to the final Hellboy movie. 4) Hancock The reason Peter Berg's Hancock feels so neutered is simply because, well, it was. From first draft to release, the film altered dramatically. What was originally a pitch-black, hard R superhero movie changed to become a generic superhero flick barely distinguishable from the usual PG-13 fare. Vincent Ngo's Tonight, He Comes - the basis for Hancock - was a widely circulated script featuring a dangerous, violent alcoholic of a superman who kidnaps his love interest and massacres police officers. Hancock threw all of that out. Now that the landscape's changed, Ngo's original script could finally be put on the screen as intended. The film as it was meant to be was highly acclaimed, with both critics and comic book fans still praising the screenplay even today. According to Film School Rejects, around 95% of the material in Ngo's script was changed on the way to making the much less enthusiastically received Hancock. Today, Ngo's story could feasibly be put on film as it was meant to be. 3) The Hulk One of the few things that Josh Trank's Fantastic Four movie did well was lending some grit to an obviously ridiculous comic book scenario. Trank took four ordinary characters with superpowers thrust upon them, and imagined what it'd be like if real people had to deal with that kind of physical and mental trauma. In the brief scene where Ben Grimm and co. awaken in a lab, distressed, Trank brings a palpable Cronenbergian body horror element. It's an element that could easily and effectively be applied to a future Hulk movie. No PG-13 standalone film featuring the big guy has been able to convey the violence of the Hulk's transformation, nor the effects of his rampages were they to play out in the real world. An R-rating would allow a filmmaker to fully explore the very human tragedy of Bruce Banner, while also facing up to the clumsy brutality of the character when he's out of control. 2) Spider-Man The Spider-Man films have always been, at heart, teen movies, focusing on a character whose physical changes are a result of more than just puberty. They star a geeky loner who overcomes the bullies to eventually get the girl he sees as out of his league. It's classic teen movie material. Only the PG-13 rating has often blunted that side of the Spider-Man movies, holding back on what the real teen experience is like by putting Peter Parker in some fairytale high school world minus the warts-and-all. Imagine, then, if Peter Parker's story was a more traditional R-rated coming-of-age tale, as much as it was a superhero saga. Imagine Freaks and Geeks meets Spider-Man, with the superhero shenanigans and the curse-heavy growing pains existing side by side. Imagine Superbad-style jokes and Juno-like young adult observations on a blockbuster canvas. Imagine Kick-Ass, but featuring a hero with proper superpowers. 1) Wolverine Out of all the cinematic superheroes out there, Wolverine is probably the one crying out most for an R-rated outing. His appearances in the X-Men movies often push the boundaries of what's accepted in a PG-13 anyway (Logan stabs people through the chest, drops F-bombs and has one horrific origin story), plus his storylines are almost always more adult than the average. He's also already been the star of a video game that was rated M for Mature - of course Wolverine needs to be the star of an R-rated movie. The hyper-violent X-Men: Origins video game is but a glimpse of what a Wolverine movie would like with the age restrictions taken off (hint: it's almost sickeningly bloody). Reportedly, we may not have to wait that long to see this vision put on film: according to the rumor mill, James Mangold is planning to finally give us an R-rated Wolverine next year. You probably have Logan's buddy Deadpool to thank for that.