Kevin Feige Says 'Deadpool' Opens The Door For "Discussion" About Future R-Rated Marvel Projects

When news broke that Marvel Studios had begun the development of “Deadpool 3” with Ryan Reynolds, fans were elated. And then came Kevin Feige himself confirming that the film would indeed be rated R, a first for a Marvel Studios-produced feature. Now, with the R-rating being on the table, fans are curious if we’ll see more “adult” projects from Feige. Well, that’s a tricky question, apparently, as Feige was asked that recently at a TCA Panel (via Deadline).

READ MORE: Kevin Feige Confirms ‘Deadpool 3’ Will Be R-Rated & In The MCU

The Marvel Studios President talked about how “Deadpool 3” is definitely in the works and will preserve its R-rating, but he doesn’t believe that an R-rating is a necessity for a project to feel “adult.”

“I think we target everything we’re doing for kids and adults, so I think your question is more adult or R-rated,” said Feige. “Other than ‘Deadpool,’ which has already established itself as a certain genre and a certain rating, that we already said we would not mess with when we started working on ‘Deadpool’ —which we have– other than that, we haven’t encountered a story or a storyline or a character’s journey that a PG-13, or the tone, or the ratings we’ve been using up to this point has prevented us.”

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He continued, “We haven’t been held back by [PG-13]. If we ever are, then certainly there can be a discussion that can be had now that there are other outlets like Star. But that just hasn’t been the case. We’ve told all the stories that we wanted to with the tonality and the rating we have now.”

Long story short, don’t expect a hard-R “Avengers” flick happening anytime soon, if ever. Clearly, “Deadpool” opened the floodgates on the R-rating discussion because of how much the raunchy tone, violence, and language are so vital to that franchise. But just because Marvel Studios will release one R-rated film, it isn’t likely that a tidal wave of adults-only projects is on the horizon.

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To be honest, Feige is definitely not wrong. When you look at the violence that Marvel Studios has been able to do with PG-13 (Thor literally decapitated Thanos in “Avengers: Infinity War”), it’s not like you’re missing much. Sure, there isn’t any nudity or excessive F-bombs, but do we really need that in a ton of our superhero films? So, it’s nice to hear that Feige is open to the suggestion and that “Deadpool” is staying true to its first two films, but let’s not hope for a hard-R “Black Panther,” okay?

As Feige mentioned, Marvel Studios has already hired writers for “Deadpool 3,” and Ryan Reynolds has been crucial in the development of the sequel. There’s no anticipated release date yet, but at this point, it seems like 2023 is the earliest possible timeframe.