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Zack Snyder's film Watchmen had notable ramifications. I like the movie – I love the half-hour opening – but at the film's release in June 2009, for Hollywood badysts, it was like a bet that had failed. Warner Bros, after all, had played a lot on the movie. He had gone against all known logic, and sunk some 130 million dollars into making a movie, which in turn was based on an iconic cartoon long considered unmistakable. And then he chilled the cake with the apparent curse for hit movies: an R-rating.
Hollywood looked closely. And when Watchmen returned $ 107 million disappointing at the US box office, adding $ 77 million elsewhere on the planet, a collective shrug seemed to take place, and the filmmakers came back at their planning meetings, freshly rebadured they had predicted a comics blockbuster R was going to stumble. They told us so
Thus, for more than half a decade, Hollywood blockbusters held rigidly to the PG-13 rule. That is, if you spend more than $ 100-150 million on a movie, it's a commercial suicide for it to not be ranked PG-13 in the United States and 12A in the UK. 2010's Jonah Hex had a host of other problems, but it did play into the narrative: an R-rated cartoon movie (albeit costing just south of $ 50m), which was recovering barely $ 11m in box
In the same period, I should note, what you could get with a movie rated PG-13 felt that it has changed a lot. It's not hard to see that Christopher Nolan had made his trilogy Dark Knight even five years ago, so it would have been hard to avoid a R in the United States and a 15 in the United Kingdom for The Dark Knight Rises at the very least. But Nolan's films still managed to skate in the ranking parameters, Marvel has accumulated a lot of box office staying in this area, and woe to those who have tried something different.
In fact, it was difficult to find a blockbuster rated R that could be interpreted as meeting commercial expectations. David Fincher tried, but his adaptation in 2011 of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo cost $ 232 million at the box office, and Sony would have expected a good $ 100 million more (the following sequels stalled The Girl In The Spider's Web )
Elsewhere, Kingsman: The Secret Service was largely an independent film, where the co-writer, producer, and director Matthew Vaughn had the place of a R rating (starting with the less expensive, but very successful, adaptation in the US, early 2015). ). Mad Max: Fury Road meanwhile, did well, but again, you did not have to look far to think that pieces suggesting that a softer notation would have brought more money.
finally came in 2016. And even then, almost by accident. And even more, with caveats.
The history of the cinematographic genesis of Deadpool is well told. As a result of X-Men Origins: Wolverine himself bypbaded an R-rating, the plan was to turn Ryan Reynolds' vision of the character of Deadpool into his own film. Director Tim Miller, screenwriters and producers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, and Reynolds himself, have been tirelessly pushing the film for several years. They wondered about how Deadpool could adapt to a PG-13 setting, and they knew that he could not, despite occasional noises on the contrary.
They also knew that the other option was going cheap. This to mitigate the risk of box office by cutting off the PG-13 audience, they thought that they could bring in the right budget.
The test footage was filmed, Fox basically pbaded on the photo, the test footage was 'accidentally leaked', the Internet exploded, Fox found $ 60 million on the back of the sofa. Under the impetus of a terrific marketing campaign – whose influence on the box office of the film should not be underestimated – Deadpool is well sure proved an extremely profitable success. It has brought in nearly $ 800 million at the global box office – more than any other film related to PG-13 X-Men – and Hollywood is quickly woken up.
20th Century Fox was the first to react. His two Wolverine derivative films at that time had reached the limits of a PG-13 rating. The successor Logan released last year, had earned his R in the five minutes following the beginning of the film. It has been a great success, and has won an Oscar nod too. Even Suicide Squad – a movie that won an Oscar! – Finished with a 15 certificate in the UK, something Warner Bros. did not fight even though the film was rated PG-13 in America. Without the triumphant success of Deadpool early in the same year, it is not difficult to imagine Warner Bros. fighting to obtain this certificate at 12. But this is not the case. is not the case
What Deadpool did – and the success of his sequel cemented that – is shown in Hollywood in another way. This should be a bit of a relief for studios that would otherwise have spent some $ 200 million in production budget for franchise films around the world at the same time, to have another, more profitable outlet. An outlet halfway between what they've already done and the model that producers like Jason Blum have made a dazzling success (low budgets, high control, lots of rewards). It may not be surprising that Blum himself is a partner in a low-budget cartoon film, the new version of Spawn by Todd McFarlane.
In the months and years to come, the cartoon R cinema is really a thing, and the studios are not far from the edges as they once were (ironically, of course, TV shows have followed a less favorable family path, and inversion of the way these things were in the 80s and
Take Warner Bros. While continuing to look for high-budget, high-impact tentpoles such as Wonder Woman 2 and Aquaman he also tries a different approach to his next film about Joker's origins.
With Joaquin Phoenix and directed by Todd Phillips, the film would have a modest budget of production of $ 55 million Warner Bros. and DC also support Birds Of Prey a cartoon movie that will see Margot Robbie take over the role of Harley Quinn, in this case leading a group of female enemies of the& Once again, the cost of this film is said to be much smaller than, say, Suicide Squad and the next Suicide Squad 2 . It is said that Sony is following the same path with some of its Spider-Man films, directed by the Venom this autumn . Warner Bros also seeks to bring the properties of the Vertigo comic strip to the screen at a lower price.
It's not just about reducing costs. There is one argument – pioneering the success of Warner Bros in the 2000s, ironically – that you are spending $ 200 million on a huge $ 50 million film on a smaller one, because they still cost the market as much and at the exit. On the contrary, it is important to mitigate the risks. It is a question of trying to reduce some costs, in order to give the filmmakers the creative control they need and to allow them to make their way in a clbadified territory R. A studio, apparently he is much less inclined to oppose an R rating if the negative cost is more modest. This is worth the risk, and Deadpool has proven that rewards can be just as rich.
In addition, it avoids going directly face to face with a Marvel model that seems unstoppable. Even thinking about taking Marvel to his own game, it's going to cost $ 200 million per movie, require a PG-13 rating, and involve an investment not just in a movie, but in a lot. And if your construction of the world is not so good? Then your planned cinematic universe may just die before it's really started. Just look at Universal's darkly mortally wounded Universe for proof.
Instead, it seems that studios are ready to watch different models, and it's hard not to see the possibilities of a movie based on The Joker. Although I have not noticed much thirst for seeing its original story played in detail on the big screen – do all the main characters really need their origin? – The idea of seeing The Joker in a dark and uncomfortable story without the edges being sanded is fascinating. Imagine if Lynne Ramsey was allowed to lead her too (Todd Phillips has the job).
All of this comes at a time when television is pouring money into a new take Watchmen where weekend box office opening is likely to have a lot less important. But it also expands the content of comic book superheroes that can also be shown on the big screen, which is a good reflection of the comic books themselves. There will be successes, there will be failures. But there is also the feeling that people, finally, are ready to take some extra risks.
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