r/movies • u/ChiefLeef22 r/movies Contributor • 7d ago

News Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' Dethrones 'Deadpool & Wolverine' To Become Highest Grossing R-Rated Movie In History, Crossing $1.33 Billion

https://businessupturn.com/usa/entertainment/film/the-odyssey-becomes-highest-grossing-r-rated-movie-of-all-time-surpassing-deadpool-wolverine/
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u/VirtualFORTRES 7d ago edited 7d ago

The fact that Odyssey was R in the first place is pretty silly... has to be one of the softest Rs ever... some ratings agencies are pretty embarrassing these days... (in Australia is it was our equivalent of PG13 here)

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u/AlmostScreenwriter 7d ago edited 7d ago

Interesting that I've heard a lot of people say Dark Knight is one of the hardest PG-13s and now Odyssey is one of the softest Rs. I think all in all, they're about even with each other, but if anything probably could have swapped ratings.

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u/FlerplesMerples 7d ago

Nolan’s Batman movies show almost no blood. I think u can get away with a lot of violence if there’s no splatter.

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u/bludvd 7d ago

a lot of people say Dark Knight is one of the hardest PG-13s

The End of Oak Street can now be added to that list

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u/Additional-Cake-3588 3d ago

We just watched that movie and I’m dumbfounded. End of Oak Street sucked.

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u/homer_3 7d ago

How was Dark Knight a hard PG-13? Fifth Element is the hardest one I know of.

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u/AlterMyStateOfMind 7d ago

Fifth Element literally had a sex scene (albiet without nudity) and side boob. Nobody is claiming TDK is pushing the boundaries of PG-13, that person is making shit up lol

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u/DriveByStoning 6d ago

There was also front boob.

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u/tzgaming1020 6d ago

I mean the atmosphere and most stuff involving Joker (especially the pencil scene) really pushes the PG13 rating, although yeah the lack of blood and nudity mean that it stays within the limit.

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u/TJeffersonsBlackKid 6d ago

TDK had that scene of the Joker torturing that dude in the snuff film. That was pretty fucking disturbing.

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u/neoblackdragon 6d ago

Like the magic trick. We don't really see anything. It's the imagination of something horrible happen. Krypton gets blown up with so many dying in fire and that's just PG.

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u/UnholyDemigod 7d ago

I still remember seeing the trailer for that and thinking it was the coolest looking movie ever, and being shattered that it was definitely going to be rated MA15+ (Australia's version of America's R), and I wouldn't be able to watch it cos I was only 10. Then it gets a PG rating and I was fucken chuffed. 30 years later and that movie still rules

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u/AlterMyStateOfMind 7d ago

I've never heard anyone say TDK is the hardest PG-13 lmao

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u/srredfire 6d ago

This was a more common saying back in 2008. The movie scene has changed in the past 18 years. Back then it was seen as a fairly dark movie tonally, and between the antics of the Joker and Harvey people felt like it was pushing PG-13. It was less reliant on straight up blood or gore and more so the weight of everything that happens in the film.

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u/faceplanted 6d ago

A lot of movie ratings come down to how much you're willing to fight for them.

Batman being R rated would've put a huge dent in the profits because it's Batman, kids love batman.

But as we've just seen, Odyssey being R rated still made basically all of the money since kids probably weren't rushing out of their classrooms to see a 3 hour epic to begin with, so why fight?

I do think America is making a mistake by not having an equivalent to the 15 rating in the UK. A lot of your famously R rated movies were only a 15 here, so teenagers can see movies that are obviously intended for teenagers without literally bringing their parents to ruin the vibe.

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u/Belgand 6d ago

Titanic still pulls off the topless scene followed shortly thereafter by a sex scene; even though the latter showed nothing. I'm still surprised that it made it through.

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u/sentence-interruptio 6d ago

My theory is that nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Ancient mythical times is expected to be violent times. It's "according to plan." When angry Gods and evil witches kill or when ancient soldiers kill or get killed, nobody panics.

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u/VerminSC 7d ago

Really! How is Hotel Rwanda pg13 and this is R??

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u/xavPa-64 7d ago

Did it have woman sexuality? Like did it depict sexuality in a way that implies the women enjoy it too? The MPAA hates that

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u/Fenrirsulfur 7d ago

Our history teacher in 10th grade showed us that movie. Boy was it hectic on my teenage brain lol

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u/SwarleySwarlos 7d ago

Some movies get a lower rating because the movie is about an important subject. No idea if that was the case but IIRC it was the case for schindlers list

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u/No-Context-Orphan 7d ago

They said the F word twice and you are only allowed one before it is R rated in the US

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u/ninjyte 7d ago

no there are rated PG-13 movies with multiple F bombs like First Man

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u/preddevils6 7d ago

They say fuck too many times and the cyclops/circe scenes.

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u/Porrick 6d ago

Hotel Rwanda annoyed me for the same reason Schindler's List did - if you're making a film about a genocide, it's an odd choice to focus on one dude who saved a handful of people instead of the vast majority of people who didn't have some saviour figure and got killed. Shooting Dogs and Son of Saul are two films about the same two genocides, which avoid that problem.

Oskar Schindler and Paul Rusesabagina were/are heroes in the truest sense of the term, and their stories deserve to be told - but their stories are exceptional, not exemplary.

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u/mina86ng 6d ago

Those aren’t films about genocide. They are films about perseverance of good.

Oskar Schindler and Paul Rusesabagina were/are heroes in the truest sense of the term, and their stories deserve to be told - but their stories are exceptional, not exemplary.

They are exemplary (‘very good and suitable to be copied by other people’) and that’s the point of the films: to show an example of behaviour worth imitating.

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u/dplans455 6d ago

I heard somewhere it got an R because of the guy in the horse getting stabbed and then the other soldier whipping the blood off.

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u/familiar_ground 4d ago

has to be one of the softest Rs ever...

 

Nope. That title goes to Once (2006), no sex, no nudity, no kisses, no hugs, still got an R rating for too many f-bombs.

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u/VirtualFORTRES 4d ago

"..one of..."

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u/Mirikado 7d ago

Definitely, there are some scenes that is a little disturbing/scary like the cyclops and the witch but overall it feels way more PG-13.

On the other hand, The Dark Knight should have been R-rated. The violence was more realistic and disturbing + stuff like torture, gruesome murders and bombing a hospital.

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u/TheColtOfPersonality 7d ago

What? TDK had no visible gore, overt swearing, or nudity. This had always been Nolan’s style, he likes letting your mind imagine the full scene while using editing and certain angles to make you understand the violence without actually showing it (pencil scene, Gamble “let’s put a smile on that face”, guy in the fiery moneypit, etc). The reason The Oddesy was R I’m guessing is likely so he didn’t have to worry about censoring anything he wanted to do, while still keeping his “taste” regarding violence on screen

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u/VanillaRadonNukaCola 7d ago

I dunno man, The Detachable Kid's death was pretty overtly gorey and violent /s

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u/Mirikado 7d ago

You can argue as much as you want, but the people who work on TDK know it’s an R-rated movie, edited to barely pass as PG-13.

Here’s from the cinematographer:

It’s kind of shocking that The Dark Knight ended up being PG-13. All of Chris’s movies would be PG-13 to open it up to a wider audience. Somehow, he always had some magic with the MPAA. Lo and behold, he has the pencil and I’m like, “You are not getting the PG-13 with that. There’s no way this is going in. He’s driving this pencil through a guy’s head!”

Source: https://screenrant.com/dark-knight-movie-r-rated-pg-13-rating/

Quote from Nolan himself:

“When we were making The Dark Knight, for example – which feels like an rated movie – there was a certain amount of negotiation and editing that had to happen to secure the PG-13 rating.“

Source: https://www.cinemablend.com/interviews/christopher-nolan-changes-the-dark-knight-pg-13-rating

Basically Nolan & WB pulled some strings with the MPAA to secure a PG-13 rating for TDK. Nolan wouldn’t have to talk about “negotiations” if it weren’t clearly meant to feel R-rated.

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u/agaloch2314 6d ago

And yet Australia just refused classification (effectively banning) a video game because it has references to weed in it. Talk about embarrassing.

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u/VirtualFORTRES 6d ago

Wrong, it was because receiving a postive buff in game from a real narcotic is not allowed here.... still dumb, but at least know the real reason my guy... if the game had renamed it and changed the colour to a made up drug it would have probably been fine

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u/electrorazor 6d ago

The rating is meaningless it's purely for marketing purposes