[QUOTE=Ascended;3375765]I cant speak for anyone else, but for me its less about nudity, violence, or language, and more about subject material.
If you want to explore the idea of the Red Room for example, and you want to do it right, the way such a thing would probably look in the real world.....that's some seriously screwed up stuff. The idea of the graduates being sterilized, which is pretty horrific, should be nothing more than the barest tip of the iceberg.
Little girls having their humanity ripped out of them and turned into living weapons and spies is something that deserves an R-rating.
We dont have many R-rated superhero films to use as a guideline. But if you look at Logan, its not the violence that justifies the rating (though it was a little more brutal than usual) it was the way they approached the story and the topics they explored. I'd expect the same kind of maturity from a properly done Widow film. [/QUOTE]
I don't know about that. The comics that the movie was loosely based on where the original [I]Old Man Logan[/I] story arc and [I]X-23: Innocence Lost[/I] (Laura's origin story). OML was a lot more nihilistic and violence for its own sake. Laura's origins in the movie were actually significantly bowdlerized from the comic (if they adapt that comic into a movie, it needs to be R -- and I say that as someone who doesn't want R-rated superhero movies). While I'm sure that the tones influenced the R-rating, in all honestly, I think they could've taken out the F-bombs and blood and been able to tell the same story in a PG-13 film (baring James Mangold's observations that the studios would've demanded a more conventional superhero movies with the lower rating and possibly less focus on how violence affects those involved).
Others may disagree, but in all honestly, I think that the story itself isn't the reason for the R rating, but the language and violence.