At a screening for upcoming titles, Fox showed attendees the first 40 minutes of its March releases Logan, the third and final standalone Wolverine film starring Hugh Jackman (purportedly in his last playing of the role). Afterwards, director James Mangold told attendees that Jackman went berserker on his pay package in order to allow the film to be R rated. Traditionally, R rated films receive less studio backing as their returns, statistically, tend to be lower than wider-audience drawing non R rated films.
Right about now, I hope many of you are thinking, but then Deadpool happened, so what gives? Hard to say: Deadpool did disprove the rule and simultaneously proved that not only can R rated films make Batman / Spiderman loads of money, an R rated comic book movie can succeed where others (all Punisher films) have failed. It stands to reason that despite Deadpool‘s success, Fox is still unwilling to gamble copious monies on an R rated comic book movie, even one starring Hugh Jackman, but all parties involved wanted to allow the film to achieve its maximum potential despite this fact. It would also stand to reason that Jackman has back-end incentives built into his contract to compensate him for his sacrifice should the movie prove another R rated comic success.
If you’re wondering what constitutes Logan being R rated, why it’s lots of fucks and violence, and apparently even Patrick Stewart is getting in on the fucking, err, dropping of F-bombs!
[Via Screenrant]
