Will ‘Wolverine 3’ Be Rated-R?

Now that Ryan Reynolds has partially taken over the world with the massive success of Deadpool, he can do damn well whatever he wants. The most radical of those changes involved creating a version that dialed the film’s violence and balls-to-the-wall humor down from R to PG-13.

Given Deadpool’s success, it’s highly unlikely that the new Wolverine film will be the only R-rated superhero movie in the next few years. Fox estimated Monday that the global total would hit $150 million, pushing worldwide grosses to $300 million.

One of the most annoying parts of the onslaught of superhero movies over the past decade has been the fractured state of the Marvel world.

According to Deadline, Ryan Reynolds was actually in discussions with Skydance Productions about appearing in Life before the release of Deadpool.

Reynolds has previously admitted making an X-Force movie is his number one “priority”. WSJ’s Michael Calia takes a look at his track record in the genre. We also see the X-Mansion a number of times, the stealth ship Blackbird and there’s even a crude reference to Beast. Studios are risk-averse when spending tens of millions, sometimes 100s of millions of dollars. That being said, at least Wolverine would certianly benefit from an R-rating. They clearly have chemistry that was underutilized in the 2009 film. No so with “Deadpool”, which was given a reported $58 million budget.

If Reynolds does sign up, he’ll be co-starring with Rebecca Ferguson, who made a huge impression in last year’s Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation.

Other anti-heros that could be successful at the box office include Time Warner’s TWX DC Comics Black Adam, a role Hollywood A-lister The Rock is set to play in Shazam, later this decade.

“It truly benefited by staying true to what the fans wanted”, Dergarabedian said. You can check out Reynolds during his visit to the Ellen DeGeneres show below.

If you’ve got a good thing going, don’t rock the boat.