No More R-Rated Comic Movies?

Splash Page is reporting an interesting rumor: Warner Bros. may be backing away from R-Rated comic movies after the intake for Watchmen was less than they had hoped. The unnamed inside studio source sites the recent over-whelming success of The Dark Knight and Iron Man, both of which were PG-13, as strong factors in Warner Bros. supposed decision to back off darker films in favor of more "family friendly" fare.

This is a move that on the surface makes sense financially. PG-13 films have a wider audience, as parents are often willing to take their kids to see "harmless" superhero violence. But the use of The Dark Knight as a reason to back away from R-rated material is a questionable defense. The Dark Knight was a film that pushed the envelope for violence in a PG-13 film, and it is the opinion of some, including myself, that the film should have been rated R. The film was a top at the box office long enough for word of mouth of its violence to drive away customers, but people kept on coming for first and second showings, until the film finally topped $1 billion dollars in world-wide box office receipts. If Knight had actually received an R-rating, would the success have been the same? I think so.
The critical acclaim combined with the hype created a monstrous wave of consumers that just couldn't be stopped, and I don't think that an R-rating would have catastrophically affected those numbers.

So what, then, about Watchmen, a comic book film that did receive an R-rating, and despite months of hype, including the public struggle of Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox over the rights to the property, failed to gross more than $56 million (domestic) in its opening weekend. To compare, PG-13 Iron Man raked in over $98 million in its first weekend. But there are more factors at work here than simply the film's rating. First, reviews were all over the place, from calling it a plot where "you really don't care" about how it ends to praising it as a film of "psychological sophistication." Compared to overwhelming praise for The Dark Knight, this is not the word of mouth that is geared towards roping in an audience, especially, as Slash Film points out, with the economy as tight as it is right now.

Now add in the fact that the film opened in March, as opposed to May, the kick-off month to the summer blockbuster season, which is usually a track to guaranteed success. Releases dates can make or break a movie. Prince Caspian, which opened in May 2008, while still earning a considerable amount of revenue, didn't hit the numbers Disney was hoping. There's a good deal of analysis that suggests that the film should have been slated for a December release, as The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was, instead of sitting in between the two heavy weights of Iron Man and Indiana Jones: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. In a similar way, maybe Watchmen should have waited for the summer season for its release, when more people are on vacation and looking for a movie to spend their money on.

Quite simply, though, Watchmen was not a true superhero movie. The focus was on the politics, not the crime-fighting, a fact that probably deterred a substantial chunk of potential audience members. That, combined with the above factors, worked against the film to give it the weak turn-out it received. Does this mean that studios should stay away from R-rated superhero movies? Not necessarily. It more likely means that Watchmen should have been more solidly written and filmed before it was ready to join the league of superheros who have come before it.