This may come as a shock, but there were R-rated comic book movie adaptations well before the runaway success of Fox’sDeadpool. But now that theRyan Reynoldsfilm has turned in a record-breaking box office performance, studios will undoubtedly be looking for the next property they can slap an R rating on. As our ownAdam Chitwoodcautioned, these studios must be careful not to take the wrong message fromDeadpool’ssuccess: It’s not just the mature rating that audiences are asking for, they’re asking for an original film presented in a unique way. That’s whereDeadpoolreally succeeded.
And yet there will be studios and audiences alike who don’t quite understand this. We’ll get moreJudge Dreddfrom studios, while the superiorDreddwill go woefully unwatched by moviegoers. We’ll get another version ofSpawnthatseems to have confused even that character’s creator. For everyDeadpool, we’ll get aWatchmen,Constantine, orPunisherthat doesn’t quite reach critical mass. There will probably be anotherBarb Wire-type disaster. (“Bomb Queen”, anyone?) All of these films have an R rating and an underperforming box office in common, but history will likely repeat itself. With that in mind, here are a few unique properties that could be worthy of having their mature subject matter adapted, butonlywith an R rating.
Wolverine / Old Man Logan
We haven’t heard official confirmation thatJames Mangold’sUntitled Wolverine Sequelwould be following the “Old Man Logan” storyline, but it does look likeFox is anticipating an R rating for the film. That will certainly free up Mangold and starHugh Jackmanto go claws-out crazy for the actor’s presumably final time inhabiting the character. A good thing, too, considering thatMark MillarandSteve McNiven’sstoryline saw Wolverine unknowingly eviscerate his own friends before attempting suicide-by-train.
He also goes head to head with the villainous Red Skull, suffers an incredibly traumatic event with his own family, and even takes on an enormous version of The Hulk. Old Man Logan cuts a bloody swatch across an alternate, dystopian America in the pages of the comic book, and an R rating would be the only way that journey properly comes to the big screen.
Jonah Hexremains one of the worst comic book adaptations in recent memory, a fact that starJosh Brolinis still sore about. While there was alotwrong with the 2010 picture both behind the scenes and on the big screen, the film’s PG-13 rating didn’t help matters. The antihero’s origin story stems from his childhood under the physically abusive rule of an alcoholic father who then sells him to an Apache tribe as a slave at the age of 13. He’s left for dead in the savage wilderness more times thanLeonardo DiCaprio’sHugh Glass. And this is all before he’s horrifically scarred by his own adoptive family.
Jonah Hex is a unique character in that he works perfectly well within his own Old West mythology, but has also been in plenty of stories that verge into the weird, from partnering with a wolf, to fighting a T-Rex, to becoming a Black Lantern. He appeared on the time-traveling superhero seriesDC’s Legends of Tomorrow, played byJohnathon Schaech. For my money, I’d next like to see Brolin’s take onJonah Hexwhich was more of a comic book version ofClint Eastwood’sR-rated 1973 filmHigh Plains Drifterin which a gunman is hired by a small settlement to defend them against three violent outlaws. That’s how you put a unique spin on a property while giving it free rein to explore mature themes through an R rating.
The Invisibles
Written by the incomparableGrant Morrison, this DC Comics/Vertigo property focused on the battle between The Invisible College - a clandestine team of anarchists who resist any forms of oppression - and the Archons of the Outer Church - inter-dimensional alien gods who have covertly enslaved most of humanity. The “heroes” are anything but traditional, comprised of a transgendered Brazilian shaman, the next iteration of Buddha in the body of a Liverpool hooligan, and a psychologically damaged telepath to name a few. This barebones description is only scratching the surfaceof the surfaceof this late 90s series, but much likeDeadpool, there’s no way to adaptThe Invisiblesas anything tamer than an R rating.
The Invisiblesis a massive work that often depicts some of the most grotesque imagery you’ll ever seen in the pages of a comic book alongside some of the most beautiful displays approaching “serious art” status. It’s also one of the weirdest stories out there, which makes sense considering it was told to Morrison by aliens who abducted him during a trip to Kathmandu (his words, of course). The pages ofThe Invisiblessaw their fair share of censorship due to depictions of group rape, child abuse, and pedophilia; despite that, the property was optioned for both a TV and film version. Neither of these have seen the light of day, but if they ever do, it would have to be R+ all the way.
Transmetropolitan
Written byWarren Ellisin the late 90s under DC Comics/Helix/Vertigo, “Transmetropolitan” would become the transhumanist author’s largest work. In quite the departure from that adaptation of Ellis’Red, this work centers on Spider Jerusalem, a gonzo journalist cast in the mold ofHunter S. Thompson, who attempts to deal with his rising popularity in a dystopian world in which he tries to keep U.S. Presidents from abusing their enormous power. “Transmetropolitan” sees Jerusalem descend from his mountain stronghold into the fallen city corrupted by a hedonistic and self-obsessed populace. This is a place where sex, violence, and drugs are every bit as common and accepted as cannibalism and pedophilia.
As weird and out-there as “Transmetropolitan” is, it deals with the same problems faced by multiple generations of modern society - political corruption, police brutality, taboos - but also plays with social conventions that spring up around the ability of splicing your own genome with alien DNA. It’s a fantastically unabashed dig into the roots of corruption in human society, one that couldn’t conceivably appear on screen with anything tamer than an R rating. While “Transmetropolitan” has been eyed for both a feature film adaptation and an online animated series, Ellis himself said it would prove too expensive to ever find its way off of his pages and onto the screen.
Another DC Comics/Vertigo story that would need an R rating in order for a film to do its source material justice,Preacheralready hit the small screen on AMC. The network certainly knows how to push the limit of graphic comic book stories - see Image Comics’The Walking Dead- but TV is still quite limited compared to the big screen when it comes to sex and violence.Garth EnnisandSteve Dillon’sPreacherhas both in spades, butmandoes it go to some dark and mature territory.
Following a small-town preacher named Jesse Custer who becomes possessed by the outlawed offspring of an angel and a demon, which gives him a power rivaling that of God, Custer travels across the country in search of God himself. Accompanied by his old flame Tulip and the hard-drinking, hard-fighting Irish vampire Cassidy, the trio leaves a bloody trail of bodies in their wake, usually not through matters of their choosing. Factor in the Angel of Death, a boy left disfigured by a failed suicide attempt, a brutal serial killer, and an inbred family in the bayou, and you’ve got a hell of an intense exploration of faith, flaws, and fatalities to enjoy. Adults only, of course.
The Dark Knight Returns
Despite the long list ofBatmanadaptations over the years, we’ve yet to see an R-rated version worthy of the darkest side of the Dark Knight and his Rogues Gallery. Sure,Tim Burton’sPG-13 films took things in a dark direction andChristopher Nolan’strilogy certainly treated the character in a mature, cerebral manner, but the closest we’ve come to fully realizingFrank Miller’sbrutal arc inThe Dark Knight Returnsis the PG-13 animated adaptation of that title. This alternate history sees an older Bruce Wayne coming out of retirement to become the Batman once more and take down a rising tide of violence and crime plaguing Gotham.
The Dark Knight Returnssees the older Batman dealing savagely with a gang known as the Mutants, only to have some of those gang members take on the mantle of the Bat and turn their excessive violence on other criminals. Though Batman faces a number of his classic villains (with a new Robin by his side), the craziest altercation comes against The Joker, of course. It’s a violent and bloody chase that ends with Joker pulling a surprise ace from up his sleeve and a citywide manhunt of the Dark Knight. There’s much more that goes on here, including an epic battle between Batman and Superman, but it will likely be a very, very long time before comic book fans ever see an R-rated version of this story play out in a live-action feature film.
Okay, let’s hit the brakes here. When most people hear the word “comic book” or “graphic novel”, their mind’s eye goes to caped superheroes and mustache-twirling supervillains.Art Spiegelman’sMaushelped to change that assumption. The comic, serialized from 1980 to 1991, centers on Spiegelman’s interview of his father Vladek about his experiences surviving the Holocaust as a Polish Jew. The unmistakeable artwork ofMausis readily evident in Spiegelman’s portrayal of Vladek’s fellow Jews as mice, the Nazis as cats, and other Polish citizens as pigs. It’s an incredibly personal story that’s also shared by millions of victims and their families, a feat of storytelling that earnedMausthe first Pulitzer Prize for a graphic novel in 1992.
Imagine a PG-13Schindler’s List; doesn’t work, right? The same could be said forMaus. Despite the very cartoonish appearance of its characters, the violence, abuse, and persecution suffered by the people in the story was quite real. And unlike the other story adaptations on this list, the content of this particular comic book is also rooted in real, painful, not-to-be-forgotten history.Mausdeserves an R rating for that fact alone, but time will tell if Spiegelman is ever willing to let his story be adapted.
Now back to our regularly scheduled, R-rated, comic book shenanigans.The Boys, a DC Comics/Wildstorm/Dynamite Entertainment series, has generated a lot of interest from filmmakers and TV producers over the last few years. Unfortunately, neither a feature film nor a TV series has yet to make an appearance, even if they’re in development. So fans of theGarth EnnisandDarick Robertsonco-creation will have to wait just a bit longer.
Set in the mid-2000s, the world ofThe Boysis populated with superheroes who have grown reckless thanks to their celebrity status. The title team is a group of super-powered CIA operatives tasked with monitoring the actions of rogue superheroes, often dealing with problems in an extremely violent manner. Couple that with the graphic sexual nature of the comic that “out-Preacher’dPreacher” and you’ve got an R-rated adaptation in the making. (Oh, plus Nazi-made drugs that grant superpowers or allow mortal prostitutes to have sex with superheroes without dying.) The anti-superhero tone ofThe Boyscould be just the balm that moviegoers who are feeling the superheroic cinematic fatigue need right now…if anyone’s got the balls to do it properly.
Invincible
Even if you’ve never opened the pages ofRobert KirkmanandCory Walker’sInvincible, you can probably judge from the image above that it’s incredibly gory. Like “super-powered heroes and villains ripping each others' guts out, knocking their teeth through the back of their head, and ripping limbs clean off” kind of gory. Fans of the series argue that it’s a more realistic depiction of what would happen when hyper-powered individuals take each other on mano a mano, though the violence has proven too excessive for some comic book readers. Regardless, this would be a hard R adaptation, likeKick-Asson alien steroids.
Following the title hero Mark Grayson, the teenaged son of an extraterrestrial superhero known as Omni-Man,Invinciblefollows his coming of age as he grapples with his burgeoning superpowers, threats to Earth, and the everyday perils of being a teenager. But the super-powered life ain’t easy, especially when Mark’s Viltrumite kinsmen seem intent on “protecting” the Earth through a violent, totalitarian regime. After numerous grisly battles, Mark decides that the only way to truly save the Earth is to kill every villain he encounters, with the added bonus of doing so in spectacularly bloody fashion. The closest we’ve come to seeingInvincibleon the big screen is thisonline motion comic, but if audiences are looking for a hyper-violent gore fest as the next thread to weave into the superhero movie tapestry,Invinciblewould be a good pick.
IfGarth Ennis’name sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve mentioned him a few times in this list already. HoweverCrossedis Ennis' id unchecked and unrestrained, which isn’t necessarily a good thing. It’s one thing to use extreme violence to show the horrors of a particular dramatic decision or to put protagonists in mortal peril. It’s a completely different beast to use mutilation, rape, wanton murder, and torture as a default backdrop in a world overrun by the insane.
Crossed, co-created by artistJacen Burrows, centers on a group of survivors of a pandemic that causes the infected to act out their darkest, most vile thoughts. The victims are marked by cross-like rashes on the faces, and by their wholly uncivilized actions. The truly terrifying thing about this turned take on the zombie virus genre is that the Crossed still retain their human intelligence, essentially making them the most horrific sort of mob ever seen in any medium. Simply put,Crossedcouldn’t be adapted with anything less than an R rating, and it might not ever be able to be adapted at all. Sometimes no adaptation is better than a poor one.
Surely there are other worthwhile properties out there that would do well to receive an R-rated adaptation. Let us know which ones you would like to see in the comments below!
