The R-rated superhero film is a rare thing; only a handful of cape-adjacent movies—notably Logan and the Deadpool movies, both spawned at the studio formerly known as Fox—have ever gone for the level of violence and swears required to tip a film out of PG-13 rating, and into Restricted territory.
The reason is fairly simple, and right there in the full name of the R-rating itself: R-movies are restricted to only a relatively small subset of the movie-going audience. And while we would never argue that the average superhero flick is designed solely for children—heaven forefend—the people who make them do like having the option to cram a bunch of kids, or at least teenagers, into a theater to see them along with all the grown-ups.
So it’s not entirely surprising to hear that, despite certain unrealistic fan hopes, Matt Reeves has never aimed his high-profile new film The Batman at anything harder than a PG-13 rating. Sure, the movie is gritty; sure, Robert Pattinson’s Batman brutalizes people; sure, Paul Dano is playing a spin on The Riddler clearly patterned on any number of famous serial killers. But an R? Perish the thought.
This is per a recent interview Reeves gave to Den Of Geek, describing his film as “a gritty, edgy, noir, thrilling spectacle that was PG-13.”
That was always what it was, but I always knew that we’d be pushing the limits of what that could be, and so we didn’t really have to cut anything. The promotional materials that you’re seeing, they’re fully reflective of the tone of the movie.
PG-13 is the comfortable “dark but not too dark” niche where most of the various Batman films have rested, including Tim Burton’s 1989 film, Joel Schumacher’s Batman And Robin, and Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, just to chart how wide a spectrum that rating can cover (The far lighter Batman ‘66, which pre-dated the PG-13 rating itself by several years, was a PG, while Joker is the only franchise-adjacent film to land an R.) Which, a) means that there’s still a lot of latitude, especially violence-wise, for Reeves’ film to cover, but also, b), what the hell would an R-rated Batman even look like? Extra murders? Evil-er clowns? If Dark Knight didn’t swing it by jamming a pencil through a man’s brain, the bar is probably a little too high to reach.