The Walt Disney Company and Marvel Studios have confirmed the rating for their upcoming superhero movie, Deadpool & Wolverine (2024).
The journey to Deadpool & Wolverine has been a long one. Director Shawn Levy’s movie will mark the debuts of Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman as the titular characters in Kevin Feige’s Marvel Cinematic Universe.
That universe has been on choppy waters lately, and the House of Mouse will be looking for Deadpool & Wolverine to be the big summer blockbuster it’s gearing up to be.
As Forbes recently reported, Levy’s new Marvel movie broke ticket records. Demand is far outpacing the MCU’s previous Phase Five entries like Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) and Nia DaCosta’s The Marvels (2023)–both of which became box office disasters (the latter proving to be the worst of all).
The turbulent period Marvel Studios is going through has caused a significant shift in how content is developed and produced. In just the last year, the studio has launched Marvel Spotlight, an initiative to separate certain entries away from the bloated interconnectedness of the rest of the franchise, and altered both its development practice and overall distribution.
This new method has left just Deadpool & Wolverine as the only feature film release holding down the fort in 2024.
The return of Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson, AKA Deadpool, was confirmed back when Disney acquired 2oth Century Fox as part of its 21st Century Fox buyout. Back then, Disney Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger claimed that the Mouse House would intend for a future Deadpool project to continue carrying an R-rating.
Both Tim Miller’s Deadpool (2016) and David Leitch’s Deadpool 2 (2018) were rated R thanks to significant foul language, blood, and gore. But what has Levy’s movie been confirmed as?
Per Film Ratings, Deadpool & Wolverine has officially received an unsurprising R-rating “for strong bloody violence and language throughout, gore and sexual references.”
While Deadpool & Wolverine has long been pitched and marketed as R-rated, this official listing will ease any lasting worries that Iger and Disney didn’t follow through on their initial plan to keep the Merc with a Mouth only for adult audiences.
Disney did censor Deadpool & Wolverine recently, though.
In a trailer released on Disney+, the same teaser trailer that dropped during Super Bowl LVIII, Disney removed all aspects of its foul and suggestive language, presumably for its family-friendly clientele. Instead of including the words “pegging” and “f***,” this version of the trailer was dimmed down, replacing the language with a more PG-13 alternative.
It’s clear by both of the trailers that have been released so far that Deadpool & Wolverine will definitely live up to its R-rating.
The return of Reynolds and Jackman, who last played Wolverine in James Mangold’s 2017 epic, Logan (2017), also signals further inclusions of the Fox universe of characters into the MCU. A taste of this was integrated into the post-credits scene of The Marvels, which saw Kelsey Grammer’s Hank McCoy/Beast appear in the MCU for the first time.
Kevin Feige recently stated that his priority upon Disney acquiring Fox was the X-Men, but after Ryan Reynolds’ multiple Deadpool 3 pitches, moved forward with the Merc with a Mouth instead. Deadpool & Wolverine, though, will introduce a myriad of mutants in what looks to be a Multiversal adventure of colossal scope.
It’s not unusual that Marvel is going down the Multiverse route for Deadpool & Wolverine. As part of the overarching Multiverse Saga, the Phase Five movie has a lot of weight on its shoulders. The trailer confirmed that Wade sees himself as Marvel Jesus, with an aim to change the cinematic universe forever.
The plot, with its inclusion of Variants and rumored elements like “The Anchor,” is a far cry from what writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick originally planned back in 2017. The scribes once hoped that Deadpool 3 would be quiet and personal while the once-greenlit X-Force movie would expand the Fox franchise in a greater fashion.
Related: Hugh Jackman Speaks Out on Leaving Marvel Behind After Disney Scrapped ‘Deadpool 3’
When Disney acquired Fox, those projects, as well as any other X-Men ones in development, were canceled, paving the way for Feige’s studio to make their own.
But, as Shawn Levy recently said, Deadpool & Wolverine is not actually Deadpool 3. It’s a two-hander character adventure, apparently, with both the titular characters getting equal billing. The director also said that when Jackman signed on, the story came very quickly.
Joining Reynolds and Jackman will be Emma Corrin as Cassandra Nova (Professor Charles Xavier/Professor X’s evil twin sister), Leslie Uggams as Blind Al, Morena Baccarin as Vanessa, Rob Delaney as Peter, Matthew Macfadyen as TVA agent Mr. Paradox, Karan Soni as Dopinder, Brianna Hildebrand as Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Aaron Stanford as John Allerdyce/Pyro, Jennifer Garner as Elektra Natchios, Shioli Kutsuna as Yukio, Stefan Kapičić as Colossus, and Lewis Tan as Shatterstar.
The latest confirmed cameo is actor, writer, and producer Rob McElhenney, who, along with Reynolds, bought the Welsh football club Wrexham A.F.C. in 2020. The pair documented their journey at the club in the Emmy-winning documentary Welcome to Wrexham.
Related: ‘Deadpool’ To Be Reshot After Details of “Mind-Blowing” Post-Credits Scene Emerge: Report
Deadpool & Wolverine looks set to include a large number of cameos from across the MCU and Fox, cementing notions that the upcoming movie will reboot Disney’s superhero franchise.
Will you be heading to see Deadpool & Wolverine at the movie theaters when it releases on July 26? Let us know in the comments down below!
This post ‘Deadpool’ Rating Confirmed After Disney Censored Marvel Movie appeared first on Inside the Magic.
