‘Batman: The Killing Joke’ Gets a Possible R Rating
Earlier this year, in July, Collider announced that Mark Hamill would be voicing The Joker in the new animated movie adaptation of Batman: The Killing Joke. Which is friggin’ amazing. Hamill is hands down the best “joker”-voice of all time and has voiced the character for years. Basically, when you attempt to hear the Joker’s voice in your head, you probably hear Hamill. That is saying something pretty amazing about what he brings to the role. He voiced the sadistic and insane character for both the animated series as well as Batman: Arkham.
Now here is the best part about the new film being rated R: It gives the film tons of flexibility to be a dark movie. Additionally, we might just get to see a closer adaptation to the original Alan Moore graphic novel, which is chalked full of violence, death and nudity-alike. Like seriously, at one point the Joker kidnaps Barbara Gordon, paralyze her and take pictures of her naked to display to her father, commission Gordon, in the hopes to make him go insane. Crazy right? But it makes for a damn compelling movie. Oh, and did I forget to mention this was after kidnapping the commissioner and holding him as a prisoner in a sort of amusement park-like cage? He is literally on display.
The talk of ratings for the new movie came up when James Tucker, a director of a bunch of DC/WB’s TV series, was promoting Batman: Bad Blood at the recent New York Comic-Con. Here is what Tucker had to say about the film adaptation (taken from Stitch Kingdom Tweets):
But Tucker himself clarified on his own twitter page:
So while DC has given permission to do a rated “R” version of the film, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be. And even if it is R-rated, that also doesn’t mean it will have all the blood, gore and craziness of the novel.
And hey, a lot can be done with a PG-Rating. WB has proven that in the past by showings plenty of death and a solid amount of skin, so maybe the rating wouldn’t matter in the end anyways? I do, however think that an R-rating allows for more freedom to be had one way or another. The producers/creators wouldn’t have to shy-away from doing certain things that would have been a no-no for other animated films. So I hope they go with an R rating if for no other reason that for the movie to have some truly unique scenes that could haunt you!
