Don’t worry — Disney *promises* that “Deadpool” will still be R-rated
We’re assuming since family-friendly Disney just bought slightly raunchier 21st Century Fox for a casual $52 BILLION, they’ll be measuring whether Fox properties are “appropriate” enough with the same kind of ruler they use to see who can go on Space Mountain. And it looks like profanity-spewing superhero Deadpool is hilarious enough to ride: Disney CEO Bob Iger says Ryan Reynolds’ Marvel franchise can keep its R rating.
Iger told members of the media that the House of Mouse is cool with a little grown-up content in their collection — so, thankfully, the Deadpool we know and love is safe.
That is, so long as people know what they’ll be getting into ahead of time:
"It [Deadpool] clearly has been and will be Marvel branded. But we think there might be an opportunity for a Marvel-R brand for something like Deadpool," Iger said on the call, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "As long as we let the audiences know what's coming, we think we can manage that fine."
The fact that those grown-up movies made Fox a lot of money over the past few years probably had something to do with it, too. Deadpool earned $783 million worldwide, making it the top-grossing X-Men movie ever. Though Disney already owned Marvel, Fox had a deal in place where they still had the rights to X-Men characters like Deadpool and Wolverine.
Ryan Reynolds recognizes that his sarcastic superhero — who will return for Deadpool 2 in June 2018 — and the cheery mice and ducks and princesses that live at The Magic Kingdom aren’t the likeliest of teams. And even Deadpool himself has been chiming in on the merger on social media since news broke.
Time to uncork that explosive sexual tension between Deadpool and Mickey Mouse. https://t.co/iUEXofWpRu
— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) December 6, 2017
If this is true, I wonder how the fudge it would affect Deadpool? https://t.co/66RNUDU80S
— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) November 6, 2017
Apparently you can’t actually blow the Matterhorn. pic.twitter.com/2bEAAcZrUv
— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) December 14, 2017
The acquisition raises a ton of other questions about how Disney and Fox will handle their superhero stories from here on out: Will franchises be recast? Will they make a Marvel character supermovie? Will Donald Duck start hanging out with Iron Man? We’ll have to wait and see.
