I really dislike movie ratings in general. I watched a ton of 18+ and R rated films as a kid and think I turned out just fine.
On the other hand a few kids I grew up with that had helicopter parents and weren’t allowed to watch some Disney movies because they thought it was too harmful ended up very… Damaged. Like they can’t moderate themselves and decide what is too much for them, have nightmares at the smallest little things, can’t separate out fantasy from reality in some cases, etc.
tiramichu@lemm.ee 1 month ago
I agree, but it’s obvious why they did it.
The teen demographic represents a huge part of the movie theatre crowd, and cutting that section out with an 18 or 15 rating can be the absolute death of a movie financially.
If a movie is an 18, like a horror, they need to lean into the adult marketing really hard and make it feel like it’s worth going to for busy adults.
Movies that have action and comedy elements rarely do well with an 18 rating. They will miss the adult crowd because they seem childish and not worth going to, and they’ll miss the child crowd too, because they literally can’t go!
They messed up on this so bad by not committing at the outset to what they were trying to do, and not sticking to it all the way through.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 1 month ago
Except…checks notes the first borderlands game came out literally 15 years ago. Pretty much every fan of the series is already 17 and over at this point, even if they got their parents to buy the games for them when they were 12 year olds.
YourPrivatHater@ani.social 1 month ago
Making a movie shit to have a “larger” audience is something i would call economic suicide, and inability to plan with stuff like IMDB Rotten-Tomatoes and similar.
Professorozone@lemmy.world 1 month ago
But it worked! Sales are skyrocket- oh, nevermind.
tiramichu@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Yes, it was a bad decision all around.
If they had committed to it being 18 rated, it would likely have been much better and more enjoyable as a movie.
I’m not saying they made the right decision, I’m only saying that I understand the chain of thought going through some executive’s head that lead to this decision being made and the end product we now have.
The entire problem is that movies are often made with the primary intention to make money, rather than being made to be the best possible movie they can be, and that can be a huge hindrance to the final product.
Jessica@discuss.tchncs.de 1 month ago
It’s actually not obvious. We just got the third highest grossing R-rated film of all time, and it was an action comedy film.
variety.com/…/deadpool-wolverine-global-box-offic…