The Future Looks Bright for R-Rated Comic Book Movies

Updated 3/2/20

It's been 21 years since Blade graced movie screens, ushering in the current wave of comic book movie adaptations. The bloody vampire action flick's $131.2 million take was enough to make it not just a standalone story but the beginning of a trilogy. Ironically, though the Blade saga kicked off Marvel's cinematic dominance, the company wouldn't continue its R-rated leanings until 12 years after the release of 2004's Blade: Trinity.

But 2005's Sin City continued the streak, albeit for Dark Horse Comics (though the 2014 sequel, A Dame to Kill For, flopped like hell and bodied the series.)

Director Zack Snyder's first foray into the genre, the live-action adaptation of the graphic novel 300, was an unqualified success in 2007, pulling down $456.1 million from the 17-and-older crowd. The movie's 2014 sequel, Rise of an Empire, was good for $337.6 million.

DC finally got in on the action with 2009's Watchmen. But though critically-acclaimed, the mature-themed film bombed and handed Snyder his only CBM flop.

2016's Deadpool shocked industry experts when its winter rollout completely upended the established order and proved that neither cliches nor standard practices were necessary for theatrical victory. The "Merc with the Mouth"'s origin story racked up $783.1 million worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time.

And since the wildly successful first outing of the anti-hero's debut, a new mature (with the requisite MPAA rating to match) comic book film has been released every year since. 2017 saw the cinematic send-off of the most popular X-Man, Wolverine, in March of that year, in Logan. The film's $619 take make it not only the best X-Men movie but also one of the most profitable. Only one of the X-series' more modestly rated entries -- Days of Future Past -- had a bigger box-office haul ($747.9 million).

Deadpool returned in 2018 and the sequel snagged $785 million from moviegoers, becoming the biggest-seller of the 12 X-movies. This year, DC's R-rated Joker bagged plenty of critical acclaim -- and controversy -- to go with its $619 million in global earnings -- after only two weeks in theaters. Joker received an eight-minute standing ovation following its screening at the Venice Film Festival, copping the event's top prize, the Golden Lion award, in the process. 

At $1.073 billion and counting, the villain's origin story has since become the top-grossing R-rated film of all time and the first to gross ten figures at the box-office. It's also the third-highest grossing DC movie of all time, surpassing all but billion-selling PG-13 hits The Dark Knight Rises and Aquaman. Joker has even outsold all of the previous movies featuring the title character (including the Oscar-winning and billion-grossing The Dark Knight). Amazingly enough, Joker has also out-grossed The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey; former highest-grossing movie of all time, Jurassic Park; The Phantom Menace; animated franchise-starter Despicable Me; and Disney hits, Toy Story 3 and 4, Zootopia, Finding Dory, Dead Man's Chest, On Stranger Tides and the live-action versions of both Aladdin and Alice in Wonderland -- and it did so without a 3-D release or screenings in China.

What does all of this mean? Only one R-rated movie of any genre has made it into the billion-dollar club so far so don't expect Hollywood to turn its back on PG-13 superhero adventures anytime soon. But just maybe the big studios will make a little more room for those who like a little blood (and locker room talk) with their onscreen violence.