We've known for awhile that Hugh Jackman's last movie as Wolverine was shooting for an R-rating. While there was every indication that the movie would achieve that goal, it's now official. Logan has been rated-R by the Motion Picture Association of America. Director James Mangold broke the news and told us exactly why.
While Logan had not been officially rated-R when the newest trailer was released last week, in the intervening days that has apparently changed. Director James Mangold took to Twitter to give us the official ruling from the MPAA along with the brief description that is now attached to ratings in order to give viewers a general idea of what they will see. The violence and language is pretty much what people expected. The brief nudity is maybe a bit surprising, though that could be literally anything, from a shot of a topless woman to Hugh Jackman's ass.
The trailer gave us every indication that the rating was going to arrive as expected. A red-band version included a pair of f-bombs, and since the MPAA usually only lets you get away with one in order to achieve a PG-13 rating, the pair of them alone basically guaranteed the R-rating. That, combined with the brutal violence that we did see, including a small child slashing somebody's face, certainly showed that Logan's rating wasn't being handled by half-measures.
We also know that the actual film will be significantly more violent than the trailer that we saw. Footage seen by our own Sean O'Connell shows us that the trailer has been digitally altered to make it a bit less violent than the actual movie will be.
Now that Logan's MPAA rating is official, it will be interesting to see how the film is being marketed going forward. When Deadpool was released last year there were many stories online about people who either didn't realize it, or discounted the rating, because it was a "superhero movie," and took young people to see it anyway. Many of them became very upset. Deadpool at least was a brand new character with no history of making PG-13 movies. Hugh Jackman and Wolverine have been in a string of them, it's even more likely that we'll have some fans either surprised by the level of violence or starting petitions to get PG-13 versions released.
Most of us, however, are probably looking forward to Logan going out with the rules relaxed, and Hugh Jackman getting to do pretty much whatever he wants.
