Between being co-chairman of the Wrexham Football Club and also actively working as one of the most successful actors in all of Hollywood, Ryan Reynolds is a pretty busy guy. And yet he still manages to find the time to sit down and develop his own high-profile movie ideas.
A few weeks back, it was revealed that Reynolds was in the process of developing his own Marvel movie, a team-up movie between Deadpool and the X-Men. The Hollywood Reporter suggested that he was working on “various treatments for an ensemble film featuring three or four X-Men characters.” Who will be in that movie, or even whether it actually ends up getting made, is unknown, but it's interesting to hear how active Reynolds is behind the scenes.
And now, it appears that the actor has also got an eye on the Star Wars franchise. Unlike his forays into Marvel, Reynolds has never appeared in the galaxy far, far away. While he doesn't want to actually be in this hypothetical new movie — he sees himself as "a bad fit" — he has already been in contact with Disney about an edgier, R-rated project.
"I pitched to Disney, I said, 'Why don't we do an R-ratedStar Wars property?'" he said in an interview with The Box Office Podcast. "It doesn't have to be overt, A+ characters, there's a wide range of characters you could use, and I don't mean R-rated to be vulgar. R-rated is a Trojan horse for emotion. I always wonder why studios don't want to just gamble on something like that."
"I'm not saying I want to be in it — that would be a bad fit. I would want to produce and write or be a part of behind the scenes."
An R-rated movie would be a first for the franchise. The most mature rating any Star Wars movie has been given is PG-13, for Revenge of the Sith. Outside of movies, selected episodes of animated anthology series Star Wars: Visions were given a TV-MA rating due to darker, heavier themes. One of the big recent Star Wars success stories has been Andor, which takes itself more seriously than most series and movies in this franchise do. It's not that hard to imagine an R-rated version of Andor. And if people loved that show so much, maybe it would behoove Disney to take that next step.
Is Reynolds onto something? Or should Disney pass on an R-rated Star Wars movie?
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