R rated comic book adaptations to film

With the mainstream comic book adaptations like Superman and Batman getting a little darker, the studios are thinking once again about R rated comic book adaptations. The concept seems a little strange, but actually 22 out of 100 of the top films on based on comic book adaptations were R rated.

The first one, "The Crow" was creepy since Brandon Lee followed his father's footsteps to an early grave before the film was released. The film was, of course, about a man who is raised from the dead. The most successful one is still "300", but the comic book was an adaptation of an old film about a very old story.


There are at least 4 R-rated comic films coming up in the next 14 months.

8/2/13 : 2 Guns
8/16/13: Kick-Ass 2
3/7/14: 300: Rise of An Empire
8/22/14: Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

The biggest budget ones, "Judge Dredd" in the mid 1990's, and the Watchman were financial disasters. Some R-rated comic book films are controversial. Particularly Kick-Ass which had young pre-teens using some really foul language.

What do you think of the possibility of R-rated comic book based films? Do you think the trend will catch on to the point where we will have 4 films in a year? Will we ever be like Japan, where they constantly read adult and even pornographic comics?

13. May. 1994 The Crow
16. Sep. 1994 Timecop
30. Jun. 1995 Judge Dredd
30. Aug. 1996 The Crow: City of Angels
21. Aug. 1998 Blade
15. Jan. 1999 Virus
19. Oct. 2001 From Hell
22. Mar. 2002 Blade II
12. Jul. 2002 Road to Perdition
16. Apr. 2004 The Punisher
8. Dec. 2004 Blade: Trinity
18. Feb. 2005 Constantine
1. Apr. 2005 Sin City
23. Sep. 2005 A History of Violence
17. Mar. 2006 V for Vendetta
9. Mar. 2007 300
27. Jun. 2008 Wanted
5. Dec. 2008 Punisher: War Zone
6. Mar. 2009 Watchmen
16. Apr. 2010 Kick-Ass
21. Sep. 2012 Dredd
1. Feb. 2013 Bullet to the Head

Nestor Carbonell should star in his own feature comic book flick based on Batmanuel from The Tick. The would be very R rated!

Quote: s2dbaker

Nestor Carbonell should star in his own feature comic book flick based on Batmanuel from The Tick. The would be very R rated!

The Tick was one of those failed TV series that would probably be a good bet for Netflix to pick up again after 12 years. But these kind of movies have very little attraction to people who don't speak English very well. So it would never be a big budget film.

Judge Dredd has been a comic book star in the UK for 34 years. In the comic book he ages in parallel with real time so he is now roughly age 70. In contrast, Peter Parker (Spiderman's alter ego) started in high school 52 years ago, and he has made it to college.

By 1994, Sylvestor Stallone had never had a serious failure in an action film since 1971's Rocky. His two failures were his two attempts at comedy. He seemed like a good actor to pay $20 million to bring the first big budget R rated comic book film to life.

2/21/92 Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot!
6/22/84 Rhinestone


Unfortunately, they alienated the fan base, by not acting like the comic book character. Other people were not excited by the idea of an R- rated comic book character, and stayed away in droves. Rob Schneider had never done much outside of SNL, and Diane Lane was only in small romantic comedies. The movie was a spectacular failure.

Not quite as a big a failure as "Waterworld", a PG-13 movie the same year with Kevin Costner.


Red Band Trailer for this summer's R rated Comc book film: Kick-Ass 2

Jim Carrey, who is in the film has now had a change of heart. He tweeted -
@JimCarrey: I did Kick-Ass 2 a month b4 Sandy Hook and now in all good conscience I cannot support that level of violence,”...“My apologies to others involve[d] with the film. I am not ashamed of it but recent events have caused a change in my heart.“

In all likelihood he will increase ticket sales by putting out a tweet like that.

Quote: Pacomartin

By 1994, Sylvestor Stallone had never had a serious failure in an action film since 1971's Rocky. His two failures were his two attempts at comedy. He seemed like a good actor to pay $20 million to bring the first big budget R rated comic book film to life.

I didn't know Rocky could do comedy. Ooops, you mean Sylvester Stallone... guess they should have figured out what typecast meant before the 20 million dollars.

>In all likelihood he will increase ticket sales by putting out a tweet like that.
Yeah, and in all likelihood he probably wrote the tweet himself.

Quote: Pacomartin

By 1994, Sylvestor Stallone had never had a serious failure in an action film since 1971's Rocky. His two failures were his two attempts at comedy.

Did you see "Demolition Man"??? The only good thing in the whole movie was Sandra Bullock's cutesy, rebellious cop.

Quote: Nareed

Did you see "Demolition Man"??? The only good thing in the whole movie was Sandra Bullock's cutesy, rebellious cop.

I agree. I didn't mean to imply that Sylvester Stallone was making great movies. But his action films were reliably profitable. By Rocky V it was clear that that franchise had played out completely. Stallone made two light comedies in a row which were abject failures. Cliffhanger, Demolition Man, and the Specialist earned the equivalent of their production budget in ticket sales. But then they went for the big budget Judge Dredd, and it tanked completely.

1990 Rocky V
1991 Oscar
1992 Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot
1993 Cliffhanger
1993 Demolition Man
1994 The Specialist
1995 Judge Dredd

Quote: Pacomartin

Cliffhanger, Demolition Man, and the Specialist earned the equivalent of their production budget in ticket sales.

Really? I'm impressed. I would have thought otherwise about Demolition Man (which BTW I've seen on TV and did not pay a penny for).

The idea was sound, but the development blew it on all levels. Given the background, it should ahve been played completely over the top as a commedy, and that might ahve worked. As it was, they tried to make it serious, with too much commedy mixed in (Taco Bell, President Schwarzenneger, etc). it also looks and sounds dated now.

What the movie stars need is another Midway/D-Day movie... you know, where it was billed as staring these hotshot stars who appeared on screen for something like seven minutes in the whole movie but the theater owners had to bid sight unseen or something.

It would let stars capitalize on their names but still not really have much of a role which is what you want with aging has beens who no longer draw an audience of substantial numbers or wealthy demographics.

Quote: Nareed

Really? I'm impressed. I would have thought otherwise about Demolition Man (which BTW I've seen on TV and did not pay a penny for).

Economically, he was paid $15 million for that movie. The total $57m budget brought in $58m in domestic box office (14m tickets). In those days a minor movie didn't circulate overseas. The production company makes money on VHS sales (no DVDs in 1993) and Pay per View, and selling rights to TV. While clearly not a great movie or even a particularly good one, you can make lots of money if you can keep doing that well.

Now, 30 years later he is still being paid $12m salary to make a movie (Bullet to the Head) that brings in $9.5m at the box office (1.2m tickets). Now you wonder if some young star who would be happy to be paid $250K would be better. Even if the movie sells 300,000 tickets and goes straight to video, you would probably be profitable.

I once heard a presentation from a Mexican film director who wanted to hire Barbara Eden from I Dream of Jeannie. He said she was still surprisingly expensive decades after her TV show. She is currently age 78.