Logan Director James Mangold Explains Advantages of R-Rating in Comic Films!
The director of Logan James Mangold was recently part of a watch party for Logan and revealed many interesting details on why he felt like Logan had to be R rated and what it cost the film.
"When the opportunity arose, I realized I'd have freedom and I even traded budget for more freedom," Mangold said. "Meaning, I told the studio I'd do it if it could be rated R, and that for me, the decision to go R was less about just wanting more violence. Although, that would certainly be part of it."
Really, Mangold wanted to be able to deliver the emotional beats and character moments which called for overall heavier themes. An R-rated film granted him this opportunity. "When you make a rated R film, the film is no longer marketed to nine-year-olds. And when the film is no longer marketed to nine or 10 year old kids, there's other changes that happen behind the scenes. The studio no longer anticipates that the film will play for families. Because the studio no longer anticipates the film will play as a family film, there are narrative burdens that are no longer upon the movie that are far different than just whether there's language or sexuality or violence."
"They also relate to the reading level of the movie, which can go up. The scene lengths can be longer. The pauses can be greater. The themes can be more complex and adult, because you are no longer servicing," he explained. "You're not making a Happy Meal anymore. You're making a grownup meal, and that changes everything." This might be part of what drew Mangold into the X-Men universe, in the first place. "My respect for what comic books I grew up with was that they always resonated," he said. "Part of what was attractive to me about it as a young man was that they weren't childish. They resonated with themes of romance, sexuality, revenge, grief, haunted childhoods, psychological damage. All these ideas were really interesting and they were more complicated in the comic books than they were, and that was part of the attraction of them. There was stuff that there's going on that wasn't in children's television or in our cartoons. There was something racy going on, in the same way that even when you watch a Bugs Bunny cartoon now, you realize... The reason I love them so much is there was something racy going on in those."
