The untenable mountain of competing streaming services has given way to a handful of real contenders and a couple of dozen also-ran options to choose from. Thankfully, most of the market leaders have defined themselves by a few key traits and unique selling points. But, what happens when one of the big names makes a move outside its typical box?
Disney Plus doesn’t appear to be anyone’s favorite streaming service, it’s just the one that everyone has to have to watch most popular media.Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, and all the classic kids' movies of the last century collected in one place certainly sells a few subscriptions. If there’s one issue that plagues the service, aside from the general distaste a powerful monopoly tends to accrue, its accusations of sympathy.
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Thanks to the ongoing merger between Disney and Fox, fans of movies based on Marvel Comics before the MCU can now see the entire genre in one place.The hitX-Menmoviesfrom the early 2000s to the modern day dropped onto the service recently. It was a reasonable addition, signaling the long-awaited return of mutants to the big screen and their addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, there were a couple of late arrivals to the streaming service that seemed held back by circumstances beyond their station. That changed on July 22nd, when the first R-Rated films to enter Disney Plus’s catalog made their leap to the streaming service.
Before the most recent additions, the most mature material on Disney Plus was the recently added Marvel seriesoriginally released on Netflix.Daredevil, Luke Cage, andJessica Jonesvastly outreach any other region of the MCU in violence and completely eschew its typical tone. They’re not just darker and grittier, they’re genuinely more mature. It’s hard to imagine a current Disney Plus Marvel show takingJessica Jones’s hard look at sexual violence orLuke Cage’s take on race.Fans love those showsand demanded that Disney keep them as part of the MCU. Since the primary purpose of Disney Plus is to keep all the profit within their network, it made sense to add those shows in. Adding theDeadpoolmovies andLoganwas the next logical evolution of that concept.
The three R-Rated films added to Disney Plus cover most of how a film can be Rated-R. Pervasive and graphic violence, adult humor, sexual references, hard language, drug use, and even a bit of nudity. Fans can tune in to all three films fully uncensored, even the multiple sex scenes inDeadpooland the brief partial nudity inLogan. With the seals opened, it’s hard to imagine what Disney would be unwilling to include. The only big boxes not ticked by those three films are sexual violence and disturbing horror elements. With that in mind, the possibility ofDisney producing its own R-Rated filmfeels more plausible than ever. As the lines between MPAA ratings grow less well-defined and the fan reaction to anything R-Rated continues to be substantial, Disney could easily be convinced to drop something meant for its adult fans.
Disney has come out and stated multiple times thatDeadpool 3will follow the franchise’s pattern of being rated R. There’s simply no getting around that, fans would protest the release of the film if Ryan Reynolds wasn’t allowed to swear and murder with abandon. The question is whether they have any R-Rated material that isn’t grandfathered in. Marvel has a ton of horror characters and plenty of franchise mainstays that would be well served by an unabashed celebration of violence. They’realready in production onBlade, and a PG-13 version of that character feels flatly wrong.
Dropping a few well-received R-Rated productions on their streaming service could be a great test run for the concept of a full feature release. Or, it could be a stress test to see what they might be able to get away with in their streaming series. Either way, Disney Plus has shaken up its typical formula with this move, and it’ll be interesting to see how it changes expectations and outcomes from this massive company.
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