Despite all its rage, Suicide Squad is still just a movie in a PG-13 cage. However, if director David Ayer has anything to do with the next installment, some R-rated shenanigans may finally be afoot. This, of course, is tremendous news for any burgeoning method actors keen on outdoing Jared Leto's many offers of Joker-inspired generosity.
"For an R movie, you have to decide to do it right out the gate, and that was never the case here," Ayer toldMTV News at CinemaCon earlier this week, presumably while still thinking of a good thank you card to send to Leto. "We were always going to hit the PG-13 rating. But the film is meant to be that. It’s got edge, and it's got attitude." When pressed about maybe approaching Suicide Squad 2 with some R-rated artfulness in mind, Ayer agreed that such an approach would be worth the apparent hassle. "It would be worth lobbying for."
Pretty promising news, yeah? Perhaps. The only problem with this theoretical R-rated Suicide Squad 2 is that, assuming the first Squad is a runaway box office smash, the chances of Warner Bros. retroactively agreeing to push the possible franchise into R-rated territory doesn't make a great deal of fiscal sense. If only Hollywood could have learned the long overdue lessons of Deadpool's hard R success much sooner, we would likely be having a much different conversation.
Push a little harder, David Ayer. What we really need is an NC-17 Suicide Squad 2.
