James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, set for release later this week, sees the Guardians of the Galaxy director return to his roots with an over-the-top, hyper-violent action film with noticeably fewer restrictions thanks to its R rating. While this is far from the first time the DC Extended Universe has dabbled with R-rated films (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice‘s Ultimate Edition, Birds of Prey, Zack Snyder’s Justice League), Disney has remained hesitant about letting any of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films reach that level. In a new interview with IndiWire this week, Gunn said he felt that is bound to happen sooner or later, but fans shouldn’t expect it from the final installment in his Guardians trilogy.
“I think they will, I think they will, I’m almost sure they will,” Gunn said. “Not ‘Guardians’ though, because ‘Guardians’ are family movies, so it’s different. People are like, ‘Finally, they let you do R rating. What would “Guardians” be like if that was R rated?’ I’m like, ‘But it’s not.'”
However, Gunn also pondered over making an R-rated spin-off film for Drax the Destroyer, played by Dave Bautista. He explained, “I could go off and make a Drax movie that’s R-rated, that I would love to do, like barbarian Drax. But the ‘Guardians’ movies are fables, and I don’t think of them like that. I don’t write them like that. It’s a different type of movie, and you can have some gore and some scary darkness in there and things like that, which is good, but it’s not the rock and roll of ‘Suicide Squad.'”
Earlier in the interview, Gunn explained that one of his conditions for making The Suicide Squad was that it had to be rated R. He indicated Warner Bros. was initially against the idea but eventually relented.
“I said, ‘It’s going to be rated R because it’s like a war film.’ I have a big aversion to war films or gun films where people are getting shot and they’re getting thrown back and it’s [just the] impact, but no real repercussions to the violence,” he said. “I hate that kind of stuff, and I’m like, ‘The only way I can do this and not have it be rated R is if I have them fighting a bunch of robots or something, and I don’t want to make a movie with a bunch of robots, I want to make a war film.’ They were like, ‘Okay, you can write it rated R.'”
Would you be interested in a Drax solo film if it had the freedom of a R rating? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments!
