Some might consider this a sign of the impending apocalypse now that the Disney CEO Bob Iger has stated that R-rated Marvel movies might become a thing. In case you weren’t paying attention or have been sleeping under a rock somewhere, Disney has officially purchased 21st Century Fox, so yes, it’s a titan that has almost no peer now since it’s got so much under its umbrella and is now free to do pretty much whatever it wants with multiple franchises. The only issue is that Disney has for a long time been known as a rather innocent and perky presence in the movie and TV world so bringing in R-rated material could pose a problem with its family image. The answer? Make a new division of course, one that’s kept firmly away from the other franchises.
After all the acquisition means that the X-Men, Deadpool, and a few others have come on board the Disney train, which could be disastrous if you really look at it, or highly lucrative if you’re looking at it from their standpoint. Ther merc with a mouth and Logan have hit box office gold after all and keeping them on track to do more R-rated movies would be the best thing that Disney could ever do. There’s also a very big chance to do more crossovers now that they own the rights to the MCU and so many characters. There could finally be an Avengers vs. X-Men, or movies in which the heroes team up, and many other possibilities that were never able to be filmed before.
Is Hollywood going to be owned by Disney eventually? There are still other corporations to contend with Disney’s ever-growing lineup but so far they have just about all the heavy-hitters that a person could ask for and all the leverage in the world when it comes to making blockbusters that people will love. Now all people can hope is that the movies they make don’t become so horribly monotone and drab that they end up shooting themselves in the collective foot. Think about it, the bigger you get the more mechanical things tend to become. If Disney overreaches there’s no telling just how things will start to go.
One thing is for certain however, with characters like the X-Men and Deadpool now on their roster they are going to have to be much more open to doing R-rated films than ever before. A few Disney films have come close to reaching the more disturbing aspects of the legends that they’re spawned from, but something has always been done to bring them back from the edge and keep their family-friendly image. With Deadpool in particular that might not be a possibility simply because of who he is and who the fans want him to be. The same can be said of Wolverine if he’s brought back, and many of those within the MCU have issues that the fans would like to see brought to light.
It’s going to be wild ride from this point on.
