With the Deadpool franchise, Ryan Reynolds proved that R-rated superhero movies could absolutely clean up at the box office. But apparently, his appetite for R-rated franchise swings doesn’t stop at Marvel.
Reynolds recently revealed that he once pitched an R-rated Star Wars project to Disney. The reveal came during a casual, hour-long chat on The Box Office Podcast. With no promotional agenda driving the conversation, Reynolds opened up about genre filmmaking, the value of creative risks, and the idea that Star Wars could benefit from some emotional reinvention.
“I pitched to Disney I said, ‘Why don’t we do an R-rated Star Wars property? 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 as a Trojan Horse for emotion. I always wonder why studios don’t want to just gamble on something like that.”
It’s easy to assume that “R-rated” in a Star Wars context might mean hardcore violence and profanity, but Reynolds clarified that wasn’t the point. This wasn’t a gritty reboot. It was more about using the rating to unlock deeper emotional stakes, not shock value. He emphasized that he wasn’t trying to force Star Wars into the Deadpool mold, quite the opposite, actually.
I think the Andor series is the closest that we have ever gotten to that. Andor unlocked that potential that Reynolds is talking about and I hope that Lucasfilm gives us more of that. He added:
“I’m not saying I’d want to be in it. That would be a bad fit. I’d want to produce and write or be a part behind the scenes. Those kinds of IP exist very well on scarcity and surprise.
“We don’t get scarcity really with Star Wars because of Disney+, but you can certainly still surprise people.”
As Star Wars expands across TV and film, some fans have felt the galaxy is starting to shrink a little with familiar characters, familiar planets, and sometimes not enough creative risk. Reynolds is clearly arguing for a little more surprise, a little more unpredictability.
His frequent collaborator, Shawn Levy (The Adam Project, Deadpool & Wolverine), is directing Star Wars: Starfighter for Lucasfilm, but Reynolds isn’t involved in that one. Instead, he’s off working on a possible X-Men project for Marvel Studios, while the Star Wars film slate is already packed with The Mandalorian & Grogu, the Rey-led sequel, and other projects lining up for release over the next few years.
A Star Wars project from Reynolds certainly would be interesting. I’d actually love to see what he has in mind, what he’d come up with.
Will Disney ever take him up on it? Unlikely, at least for now. But if there’s anyone who could nudge Lucasfilm out of its comfort zone, it’s probably the guy who once convinced them to let Deadpool crash the MCU.
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