Joker made a billion dollars, so what does the R-Rating mean?

Alright! So, like, two months ago, Joker made a billion dollars. But here's the catch; it was R-Rated.
The first R-Rated film to do so.

So, now, with that success, studios are looking at the R-Rating in a more profitable light. But they may miss out on the purpose of the R-Rating.

Movies that should have R-Ratings

R-Ratings should really be more about darker themes and, yes, if the story should demand so, sex, language, and violence - I would not expect a movie about Elton John or the Who or any musician to be PG-13, because rock stars don't really live a PG-13 life. In fact, Elton John said that.

Or a movie about the Holocaust, like Schindler's List, or a war movie, like 1917. Those demand R-Ratings just for subject material. I was reading this amazing book, With the Old Breed, about the Pacific Island Hopping campaign in WWII. It is not PG-13. War is not PG-13. War is R.

And yes, superhero movies. Some superheroes, like Joker, Harley Quinn, Deadpool, and most other heroes/antiheroes should be R just for the things they do. Deadpool is not a PG-13 type of guy.

In X-Men Origins: Wolverine, they only got him to be PG-13 by sewing his mouth shut. Fun fact.

But upcoming films like Birds of Prey and Deadpool 3, plus the recent Joker, warrant R-Ratings because those characters are dark. Those people are dark people. 

Exceptions to the rule

But the money! Studios need money! So they edit down the lives of Queen, and families go see Bohemian Rhapsody. 903 million dollars. Congrats. That's a huge, huge hit. 

They make movies about the less violent aspects of war; The Darkest Hour, Valkyrie, and Dunkirk. Those are mostly political movies, and Dunkirk was just a bunch of random footage strung together.

But then the superheroes! Superheroes are the most popular genre of "Not cinema" out there today. So they take extremely violent movies and characters, like Wolverine, and then edit them down to PG-13.

X2 was originally rated R for that scene where Wolverine attacks a bunch of soldiers attacking the X-Mansion, but they edited 30 seconds out and the movie is still amazing. X2 is still a great movie, and it was lucrative for the studio.

So then we get Venom. Venom is an R-Rated character, but they made him PG-13 and the studio made a lot of money. Venom made way too much money. But was an R-Rating essential to it? Could they still make a good movie without it? Well, Venom has a 29% on Rotten Tomatoes. But would more violence made the movie better? No, probably not. So it's fine, be PG-13. Now you may cross over with the MCU.

Taking it too far

Here is where it gets tricky; what defines too much? Well, the Wolf of Wall Street. The Wolf of Wall Street is that one movie Martin Scorsese made in 2013 that set the record for most F-bombs, clocking in with around 500. When it's a three hour long movie, that's about an F-word every 36 seconds. Is it really necessary to include that much? And it included several orgies and sex scenes and what not, so what was the point of that? Does it add to the movie? Or does it turn a vulgar thriller into a thinkpiece with Leonardo Dicaprio? 

And he said superheroes "Weren't cinema."
And what about stuff that's just gratuitous to make sure it earned that R-Rating? 

The Bottom Line

Look, the bottom line is just that there's no real reason to have an R-Rating unless that's what you're going for. PG-13 is more profitable. But R-Rating is necessary for the harder stories. 

But what about Birds of Prey? Should that really need an R-Rating? Harley Quinn is definitely someone who deserves an R-Rating because that's her personality, but Black Canary and Huntress? Yeah, they're probably crossing the line.



Venom 2? Sure, that could be R-Rated, but I don't see why they would do it. There's no justifiable reason to make a movie R-Rated unless the R-Rating can add to the story, like a war movie with carnage, or a biopic showing the dangers and effects of drugs, or it adds to the style of the movie, like Kingsman or Baby Driver.

But superheroes? The most profitable genre? Do they need R-Ratings? Why should the Suicide Squad be R-Rated when Suicide Squad was an okay movie that made a bunch of money? Will it make more money with an R-Rating?


And Black Adam? Sure, he's a badguy. But it's the Rock! And Black Adam is not the Joker. If he's supposed to fight Shazam, why make him an R-Rated character and toss him into a PG-13 movie? (Yes, Deadpool will do this eventually. But with Deadpool you can roll with it).

Does adding expletives and sex enhance a story? If it's just as good without it, why even bother and let it (Probably) make more money?

I don't think that studios should go around thinking R-Ratings be as profitable as Joker. Joker combined an extremely, extremely popular character who's been around for 79 years, a great story, and released it at a time when audiences were drowning in disappointing reboots.

There are so many whos and whats and variables to consider when wondering if an R-Rating is justified that I don't even want to talk about it any more.