With Watchmen failing to reach that imaginary dollar mark that makes the studio feel good about themselves, WB is leaning towards no more R rated Superhero tent poles
"The biggest superhero film last year (and of all time) was a WB film, The Dark Knight, which grossed $1,001,842,429 worldwide and it was rated PG-13. Iron Man, another big hit last year, grossed $582,030,528 worldwide and was rated PG-13. Everybody took their families to these movies, kids bought the shirts and the toys and the masks etc. which means more money for the studio.
On the other hand, Zack Snyder's Watchmen was rated R and I am sure the fact that it was 2 hours and 40 minutes long also had something to do with it, but it bowed at $55 million opening weekend and then sharply dropped off. You can't take your kids to this one, not sure if you'd even be comfortable watching it with your mother. Don't get me wrong, I really liked it and thought it was a fantastic piece of filmmaking, but it's definitely for adults only. And no kids will be asking mommy to buy them shirts or Rorschach masks from this one.
How much of the movie going market - specifically those that go to see superhero/genre films - is cut out by rating a film R versus a PG-13? Warner Bros. thinks too much and is said to be focusing solely on PG-13 rated superhero/tent pole films only, definitely harder than the "family friendly" superhero films of Fantastic Four but not in the R rated range. Think about it, the movie going audience is "huge", now the genre/superhero movie going audience is a portion of that "huge" and the R rated/genre/superhero movie going audience is an even smaller portion of that "huge." It makes a lot of sense to make the movie for the largest audience possible and still respect the property.
Not that it's a superhero film, but it is a genre tent pole, Terminator Salvation, PG-13 or R? WB wants PG-13; director McG wants R just like the originals. McG was outspoken about the ratings debacle at WonderCon 2009 who said he wants the Moon Bloodgood in the rain topless scene kept in the film. WB wants it nixed to comply with the PG-13 guidelines. This was before the R-rated Watchmen premiered but the studio apparently already had the feeling that PG-13 was the way to go to make the big box office bucks with the genre.
So you can bet your ass Green Lantern and Wonder Woman will be PG-13. However, I've been told Jonah Hex, set for August 2010, is still a go for an R rating however WB doesn't consider it a "superhero" movie per se but a rather a comic book adaptation and not one of their tent pole films."
It’s too bad that WB is blaming this decision indirectly on Watchmen. To be fair Watchmen was a good movie but it wasn’t great. The movie needed less peter shots and Hell, Rorschach could have had his own movie that probably would have been more successful then Watchmen. I can understand the studios need to appeal to the younger crowd but what about the younger crowd of 10, 15 or 20 years ago? We have all grown up, and now that we are no longer 10, it would be nice to look forward to a few adult oriented comic movies. In saying this I also have to iterate that we will not be getting any R rated Batman, GL, Wonder women, or any other mainstream hero movies. I know this because WB won’t be having any chances of less profit making going on. Watchmen made 55 million opening weekend, then it dropped off. It’s too bad the WB won’t look at that as somewhat of a success. There have been far worse projects the WB has released making far less money. Can anyone say Speedracer? Speedracer is hard core proof that just because its kiddy doesn’t mean