2009's "Watchmen" made only a few million more than its budget. Is its "R" rating partially to blame?

In an article for Variety.com columnist Tatiana Siegel reports how lately Hollywood has been growing more and more averse to having their films stamped with an “R” rating. The topic gets introduced with the upcoming Clash of the Titans remake, which if you’ve seen the trailer or any commercials you’ll understand is supposed to have its fair share of violence.

Basically, the rule of thumb has been growing more and more into the overall standard. The bigger the budget, the less likely a studio will accept an “R” rating. The logic is of course that PG-13 ratings draw the widest audiences, which means the highest possible returns. Small budget films receive more slack (such as selective horror projects), but studios even insist that they shoot for PG-13 if possible (ex., Prom Night (2008)).

Some requirements are easy to satisfy. For instance, to avoid an “R” rating a film can only show violence against monsters or limited violence against people. If there is blood it must be limited, and if not it must be a different color than red – typically black. And of course, foul language must be kept to a minimum (the F word can only be uttered once).

Studios are more weary of releasing “R” rated pics lately because they’re failing to bring in big returns. Two recent examples are Watchmen and The Wolfman. Both cost over $100 million to produce but failed to make back their budgets with domestic grosses (Wolfman only managed to make back $61 million domestically, and even its worldwide B.O. failed to make it break even).

Screenwriters have stopped writing scripts that are intended to be “R” rated because studios are refusing to pick them up. However there are people within the industry who are willing to be more cavalier with raunchy material. Director/Producer Todd Phillips (The Hangover) supposedly told writer Phil Hay regarding the topic, “Write [the script] the best it can be. And we’ll figure it out later.” – Variety

What is your opinion on the “R” and/or “PG-13″ ratings? As a moviegoer, do you care about what the rating is of the movie you want to see? Do ratings affect which movies you see? What if a film is rated “R” but proves satisfying and entertaining enough to justify its ticket price?

Tell us what you have to say!

Quick Opinion: The movies mentioned by Siegel (The Wolfman, Watchmen, Prom Night) may not be the best examples to list on this topic. Based on reviews and audience reactions, as well as talks with friends, both The Wolfman and Watchmen‘s lack of success is not due to their being “R” rated. People seem to agree that The Wolfman‘s plot was too generic and its characters too flat, and seemed undecided about whether it wanted to be new or nostalgic. Fans of the Watchmen comics conceded that there was too much story to pack into a single film, which made the screen adaptation feel overstuffed and lack concentration. The remake of Prom Night suffered from arguably too little violence, and might have actually made more money had it shared the same “R” rating as its original. Because of how popular the horror genre is with teenagers, though, business logic tells you that you don’t make a product for a particular audience and then make it inaccessible to them (remember the No Admittance Under 17 “rule”). However, sometimes I think that studios who make horror films fail to recognize that there are plenty of horror fans over the age of 17 as well (in fact most of them). All in all, I’m convinced that it’s not the “R” ratings on certain films that are the issue, but the overall poor quality of those films and their inability to satisfy their audiences.