Cognition Dissemination: The Batman Doesn’t Need to Be R-Rated

The MPAA confirmed after a bit of speculation that The Batman will be PG-13 for “strong violent and disturbing content, drug content, strong language, and some suggestive material.” This peculiarly irked a vocal number of fans, and I’m struggling to figure out precisely why they’re still upset about it two weeks after this was confirmed.

Trailers released for The Batman have portrayed a movie that will have plenty of horror and mystery elements to go alongside the action it was expected to have compared to any Gotham City tale. Director Matt Reeves has played up those elements in his own promotional efforts through article quotes and interviews, with Batman/Bruce Wayne actor Robert Pattinson following suit. But a few too many fans took that as an inference of this being another R-rated venture for Warner Bros., following in the footsteps of Birds of Prey and The Suicide Squad. Those hopes should have never been that high, and the disappointment about it is as hyperbolic as anyone who’s spent entirely too much time on the internet (like yours truly) would expect.

The hyperbole doesn’t perplex me, even when it’s coming from otherwise “normal” people; instead, I’m confused as to why certain fans even wanted an R-rated version so badly in the first place. An R-rated The Batman could not have offered anything more significant compared to a PG-13 version.

Batman himself, true to most other versions of the character, doesn’t kill villains himself. Batman/Bruce Wayne will be as central of a character here as he is in other Batman series starter films, as Reeves got his wish from WB to provide yet another live-action spin on the character’s origin story. Batman can only be so violent with so-called “mooks” and villains in the Rogues Gallery without killing them, and nothing more is required for the many one-on-one battles this movie will have if the trailers are anything to go by. It’s already clear this movie will have some of the most brutal Batman-involved fights in live-action form, yet they were still palatable for a PG-13 film.

Perhaps the fans want villains to be involved in grislier scenes. But those aren’t necessary for villains in a Batman film, especially those in The Batman film. The Riddler is, in fact, one of the least violent Batman villains around since he doesn’t do much fighting himself, and the Penguin isn’t much of a step up.

It’s also possible some fans think an R-rating is required for horror to feel convincing, which isn’t true. The funeral scene circulating through YouTube’s ads is a good one to show this off, which effortlessly veers between subtle and overt horror within a short time. There are people nitpicking this scene apart (“If someone had a bomb, YOU wouldn’t just stand there would you?”), but it’s the hallmark of a good scene director to know how a group of people won’t always act in ways armchair viewers will think is a logical manner. These are people living in a largely-normal world of Gotham City that’s suddenly upended by a crazy stunt from a soon-to-be supervillain, before the reclusive Bruce Wayne has become commonplace as Batman. They’re stunned at everything happening around them in that moment.

Saying it needs to be R also underestimates what can be done in a PG-13 film. The trailers have already shown how Batman can get away with brutal fights with the rating, apparently fine as long as too many limbs aren’t broken and not much blood is shed. In a non-Batman example: It can be surprising to see the number of horrifyingly violent scenes movies like the A Quiet Place films are capable of having, though I don’t expect The Batman to have anything on par with those.

Other DC movies didn’t need to be R either. Birds of Prey was a fun film, but much of the R-rated content it contained felt forced for the experience to feel more mature when that wasn’t necessary for its quality. The Ultimate Edition of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, meanwhile, is one of the lightest R movies I’ve seen in recent memory (I just watched it at the end of 2020), with only a few bloody scenes pushing it into that territory.

WB’s marketing team may not want to pursue another R movie either. Neither Birds of Prey nor The Suicide Squad set the box office on fire when they released. The former hit theaters over a month before the first COVID-19 lockdowns happened in 2020, and provided underwhelming numbers. The latter was simultaneously released on HBO Max last year, sure, but that didn’t stop others like Godzilla vs. Kong and Dune from doing well worldwide despite that — two notably PG-13 movies. (The R-rated Mortal Kombat appears to have done well on HBO Max.) And you can bet that WB is looking at how well Spider-Man: No Way Home is performing on the extreme opposite end of the spectrum. WB may rightly feel that R-rated comic book films aren’t marketable during a time when most adults are still justifiably hesitant to return to theaters.

The Batman is still set to arrive in theaters on March 4th, a date it should make with recent Omicron-driven COVID-19 cases settling down and the aforementioned fellow comic book movie performing well. The combination of Matt Reeves’ good reputation and Pattinson recently comparing this to Mask of the Phantasm has given this movie a lot of promise that I’m crossing my fingers it will live up to. If it doesn’t turn out well, it won’t be due to the film not being R-rated.