James Gunn and Peter Safran’s plans to make DC the biggest name in superheroes is just getting started. Gunn is a beloved director, best known for Super, The Guardians Of The Galaxy trilogy, The Suicide Squad, and Peacemaker. While his most well-known works are the PG-13 rated Guardians Of The Galaxy movies, Gunn has proven to be just as good at bringing moviegoers R-rated films that combine raunchy humor and graphic violence with the kind of heart that he delivered in the Guardians Of The Galaxy movies. So, when Gunn was asked in an interview by Collider whether the new DCU would have R-rated movies, his answer was an unsurprising yes.
Gunn revealed that DC wasn’t going to limit their movies to certain ratings, saying, “We’re not about that. We’re not about ‘See how it does.’ We’ve got one opportunity to take these characters and really press forward and do what we believe. I am a great believer that if we tell good, authentic stories, if a movie does well or doesn’t do as well, if you keep with that same philosophy, that you’re going to build a universe that people are going to love and want to be a part of for a long time.”
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Gunn went on to say that, “It’s not about testing out to see if this thing works. It’s just about telling a story. If a story is going to be R-rated, we’re totally okay with that. If it’s going to be PG, PG-13, or G, I don’t care — whatever is worthy of the story, that’s what we’re going to do.”
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This latest interview from DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn is a cause for celebration for fans. DC has put out many of the best mature readers comics of all time, many of which are set in the DC multiverse. So DC Studios being open to R-rated movies means that some of these stories could be seen on the big screen by fans who have eagerly awaited live-action adaptations. Of the confirmed projects announced for the DCU, the Swamp Thing movie from James Mangold or even The Authority movie could very well find themselves in R-rated territory.
DC has a lot of work to do on their films in the coming months and years, and not worrying about the mature elements in the stories they’re telling is one thing that they don’t need to worry about. Gunn’s DC work to date has been harder-edged than what he previously developed for Marvel Studios, and part of the appeal of Gunn at DC is potentially seeing more material like The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker. That in mind, his confirmation about R-rated DC movies is yet another piece of good news for DC fans.