IESB (who like to chestpuff a lot of their rumored news of late) is reporting that Warner Brothers is now stopping R-rated superhero movies, and perhaps to what is being perceived, and not entirely inaccurately, as the failure of the expensive Zack Snyder film, “Watchmen.”
This may be for the better, for audiences and critics. For one, “The Dark Knight” put the money in the bank since it had a user-friendly PG-13 rating, and families across America were “allowed” to be captivated. Ditto with “Iron Man,” another critically-acclaimed/audience-beloved superhero flick. The two grosses combined are likely to be more than ten times the total take in of “Watchmen,” which two successful super-hero films together earned a total of 10 Oscar nominations. “Watchmen” is projected to maybe break even or just over, due to its mediocre critical reception and terribly coordinated release time (March?).
But, then again, could you really make a PG-13 “Watchmen” film? It’s pretty tough stuff, gritty and all. The other two were a little more cartoonish than the political, realistically violent “Watchmen,” and we don’t blame parents not taking kids to see the gruesome events of the film. Now, should they stop making R-rated superhero movies? They should stop making bad ones, for one. But to us, in some ways, the restricted rating and men and women in cheesy uniforms, fighting villains, don’t really seem to mesh.
Actually, I reckon WATCHMEN’s R-rating spurred Snyder to go extra-cartoonish on the violence. The violence in WATCHMEN is as realistic as the violence in KILL BILL: Not at all, that is. When you look at the brutality depicted in the BOURNE films and DARK KNIGHT and whatever, I think that the producers in retrospect should have pushed Snyder for a PG-13 film.