With DC movies getting the most success from their R-Rated films could The Batman PG-13 rating hinder its success?
DC has certainly had a miserable time at the office over the last few years with only Joker being a film of note worth watching. Both Birds of Prey and The Suicide Squad weren’t critically acclaimed and whilst they were a new direction for R-Rated DC movies it seems as though The Batman is taking a step back.
Warner Brothers demanded that The Batman was a PG-13 rated movie, but why?
Maybe the hit and miss success of previous R-Rated DC movies was a factor or maybe they wanted to play it safe with The Batman.
With such dark themes and even darker villainous characters, you’d expect a film such as The Batman to thrive in an R-Rated environment but a PG-13 rating seems to almost diminish the potential of the movie whilst keeping it a safe bet for the studio to recoup costs as PG-13 movies will attract bigger audiences and bigger profits.
Director Matt Reeves told Collider:
“I have to say, this movie is exactly the movie I wanted it to be, and they have supported me all the way through it. One thing they did do, which was my intention from the beginning, was they said, ‘Look, it’s important to us that the movie be PG-13.
It’s a Batman movie, and we’re investing so much in it. And I was like, ‘Well, in the Apes movies, I tried to sort of find that balance as well.’ I felt like in that same way, I knew that we could push the boundaries of what you could do in a PG-13 movie and still deliver everything I wanted to do.”
With reviews seeping online earlier than their embargo date it seems as though the ones that have surfaced online so far are very positive indeed indicating that The Batman is going to be a potential success.
I still don’t always believe what critics have to say and will reserve judgement as I can’t possibly wrap my head around a film as darkly presented as this could be fully executed under a constricted age rating.
We’ll soon find out, won’t we?
Two years of stalking the streets as the Batman (Robert Pattinson), striking fear into the hearts of criminals, has led Bruce Wayne deep into the shadows of Gotham City. With only a few trusted allies—Alfred Pennyworth (Andy Serkis), Lt. James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright)—amongst the city’s corrupt network of officials and high-profile figures, the lone vigilante has established himself as the sole embodiment of vengeance amongst his fellow citizens.
When a killer targets Gotham’s elite with a series of sadistic machinations, a trail of cryptic clues sends the World’s Greatest Detective on an investigation into the underworld, where he encounters such characters as Selina Kyle/aka Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz), Oswald Cobblepot/aka the Penguin (Colin Farrell), Carmine Falcone (John Turturro), and Edward Nashton/aka the Riddler (Paul Dano). As the evidence begins to lead closer to home and the scale of the perpetrator’s plans becomes clear, Batman must forge new relationships, unmask the culprit, and bring justice to the abuse of power and corruption that has long plagued Gotham City.
