The untenable mountain of competing streaming services has given way to a handful of real contenders and a couple of dozen also-ran options to choose from. Thankfully, most of the market leaders have defined themselves by a few key traits and unique selling points. But, what happens when one of the big names makes a move outside its typical box?
Disney Plus doesn't appear to be anyone's favorite streaming service, it's just the one that everyone has to have to watch most popular media. Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, and all the classic kids' movies of the last century collected in one place certainly sells a few subscriptions. If there's one issue that plagues the service, aside from the general distaste a powerful monopoly tends to accrue, its accusations of sympathy.
Thanks to the ongoing merger between Disney and Fox, fans of movies based on Marvel Comics before the MCU can now see the entire genre in one place. The hit X-Men movies from the early 2000s to the modern day dropped onto the service recently. It was a reasonable addition, signaling the long-awaited return of mutants to the big screen and their addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, there were a couple of late arrivals to the streaming service that seemed held back by circumstances beyond their station. That changed on July 22nd, when the first R-Rated films to enter Disney Plus's catalog made their leap to the streaming service.
Both Deadpool films and Logan are now available to Disney Plus subscribers. This is the culmination of the gradual process of Disney's acceptance of adult-oriented content on the service. In its infancy, nothing over PG-13 would be allowed into the inner circle, alongside Mickey, Obi-Wan, and Ant-Man. Film ratings are, and have always been, largely contextual nonsense decided on the spur of the moment by puritanical censors with self-contradictory ideals, but they still hold weight with some. Disney even censored examples of unsexualized partial nudity while allowing violence, bodily dismemberment, and murder. It's followed the unpleasant and logically inconsistent censorship that has become standard in American pop culture. That standard has gradually slipped before being abandoned entirely.
Before the most recent additions, the most mature material on Disney Plus was the recently added Marvel series originally released on Netflix. Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones vastly outreach any other region of the MCU in violence and completely eschew its typical tone. They're not just darker and grittier, they're genuinely more mature. It's hard to imagine a current Disney Plus Marvel show taking Jessica Jones's hard look at sexual violence or Luke Cage's take on race. Fans love those shows and demanded that Disney keep them as part of the MCU. Since the primary purpose of Disney Plus is to keep all the profit within their network, it made sense to add those shows in. Adding the Deadpool movies and Logan was the next logical evolution of that concept.
The three R-Rated films added to Disney Plus cover most of how a film can be Rated-R. Pervasive and graphic violence, adult humor, sexual references, hard language, drug use, and even a bit of nudity. Fans can tune in to all three films fully uncensored, even the multiple sex scenes in Deadpool and the brief partial nudity in Logan. With the seals opened, it's hard to imagine what Disney would be unwilling to include. The only big boxes not ticked by those three films are sexual violence and disturbing horror elements. With that in mind, the possibility of Disney producing its own R-Rated film feels more plausible than ever. As the lines between MPAA ratings grow less well-defined and the fan reaction to anything R-Rated continues to be substantial, Disney could easily be convinced to drop something meant for its adult fans.
Disney has come out and stated multiple times that Deadpool 3 will follow the franchise's pattern of being rated R. There's simply no getting around that, fans would protest the release of the film if Ryan Reynolds wasn't allowed to swear and murder with abandon. The question is whether they have any R-Rated material that isn't grandfathered in. Marvel has a ton of horror characters and plenty of franchise mainstays that would be well served by an unabashed celebration of violence. They're already in production on Blade, and a PG-13 version of that character feels flatly wrong.
Dropping a few well-received R-Rated productions on their streaming service could be a great test run for the concept of a full feature release. Or, it could be a stress test to see what they might be able to get away with in their streaming series. Either way, Disney Plus has shaken up its typical formula with this move, and it'll be interesting to see how it changes expectations and outcomes from this massive company.