Oct 28 2009
Should Lobo Get An R-Rating?
Ah, Lobo. What an unusual character. The alien-mercenary enjoys nothing more than mindless violence and intoxication of all kinds. Somehow, the character is lined up to get movie treatment from director Guy Ritchie, with production starting early next year. In fact, a recent rumor suggests that Clancy Brown is being considered for the part. Brown is known for parts in movies like Highlander and the Shawshank Redemption, but you might recognize him as the voice of Lex Luthor. The guy certainly doesn’t have a big name, but neither did Ron Perlman and he nailed Hellboy. So even though Superman can’t get a reboot and Wonder Woman and the Flash are still stuck in development hell, Lobo has an A list director and is fully underway. Kind of funny, methinks.
But back to the title of the article. Should Lobo get an R-rating? Right now the studio is hoping for a PG-13, which means a much wider audience. A PG-13 movie means that the violence and language would be toned down, and that the movie (if done well), would do better at the box offices. Even good R-rated movies only perform so well, and a PG-13 movie would have a higher upper limit of box office success. But hey, it’s a superhero movie and these movies should be made PG-13 so they can make as much money and be as successful as possible, right?
Wrong. Here’s the thing. PG-13 movies have potential to make more money if they’re good. IF. Some characters and genres just don’t work in PG-13, and the movie does horribly. Could you imagine a PG-13 version of 300? It would have been awful without all the glorious decapitations. Instead, it went for the R and become a massive success. Lobo is one of those characters that you need an R-rating for. If you’re going to stay loyal to the source material (which you have to), then he has to kill scores of enemies and get messed up in every sense of the word. Whenever comic book characters depart from the source material, things tend to go bad. Case in point: Ghost Rider. A movie that should have been borderline-R or at least a a bit more intense felt more like Spiderman on a motorcycle. Same goes for the Punisher’s first outing with Thomas Jane. You can’t have a Lobo movie without lots of violence and general brutality. If you tone the gritiness of the movie down, or get rid of it, then you lose the soul of the character. Once you lose that essence, you have a crap movie.
So I will admit that Lobo might need to tone down some of the profanity and excess. We need some people to go watch this thing. Punisher: Warzone was so over the top that no one went to see it. But with an edgy director like Guy Ritchie, I’m confident that they can produce are a hardcore movie with a sense of charm. That’s what the man does. He makes moves about pig feeding gangsters and gypsies who knock the living snot out of people. Cmon Warners, man up and go for the R.
