A quote from Kinberg and Hutch
“There really hasn’t, mostly because the depth and the complexity of the characters, there’s been nothing we haven’t been able to tackle within a PG-13,” Parker said. “Logan was driven by wanting to do something different with the nature of his condition, with the way in which we expressed and represented the violence, with the accumulation of that in a life. So there were very specific ideas that Jim wanted to explore that required an R. In this case, we would and could have had the conversation, but the material didn’t really warrant it in that same way and I think certainly the way which [Kinberg’s] explored the character-based issues of Dark Phoenix I’d say is darker and in many ways much more intense without necessarily requiring R-rating.”
“Kinberg added, “I think when you look at Dark Knight, that was a PG-13 movie and that tackled some really mature subject matter and was edgier and darker and more intense than previous movies in the genre had been, but that was still a PG-13. So like I've said, there was no need for extra swear words. The level of violence in this is intense for PG-13 movie but is still within the bounds of that.”Also nowhere I have seen where X-men 2 was submitted to be rated got an R rating then had to be cut to be a PG13. X-men 2 was always meant to be PG13. Wolverine 2 had the option of being rated RI think there are some stories that could be R-rated. I don’t know what they are, I mean I think the mainline X-Men movies have their own tone, which is a more operatic tone. It’s more dramatic, it is more PG-13 in a way. X-Force I could see being R-rated, and who knows?
Wolverine Origins as wellWe heard rumors earlier this year that 20th Century Fox was considering making Wolverine 3 rated R, no doubt emboldened by the immense success of Deadpool even though this R-rated Wolverine was in the works long before that film was released, and now it appears that the picture is indeed envisioned as a fully R-rated superhero movie. That’s kind of huge. Mangold shot an R-rated version of The Wolverine but also shot alternate takes to make sure they had the option of going PG-13 if they wanted to—which they did. But with Wolverine 3, the intention from the get-go is R-rated, so we’ll be getting the full, unfiltered creative vision when the finished film hits theaters.
Lastly Tom RothmanI say ignorant because X-Men Origins: Wolverine was originally conceived as an R-rated film, as Game of Thrones co-creator and showrunner David Benioff (Troy, 25th Hour) was hired to pen the script in 2004. He would attempt to adapt the violent Weapon X comic and the solo Wolverine run by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller, with a “darker and brutal” version of character’s origin writing an R-rated script. Hugh apparently collaborated with David, so it wasn’t like he went rogue and did something people weren’t asking him to do.
That said, Benioff did say he wants to “rough” Wolverine/Jackman up a bit, giving him an opportunity to show sides the first two movies didn’t afford the character aside from the Mansion invasion scene in X2. Promising his story will be a “bit darker and a bit more brutal”, Benioff says he’s writing an ‘R’ script and that Marvel Studios and director will have to decide where to go from there.
The big point is it is not Marvel that was keeping X-men PG13 . It was fox and if Deadpool hadn't leaked with R cut , Fox would have probably made Logan PG13 as well. Fox dumb lucked into success with Deadpool and Logan. We know this because New Mutants which should have been an easy R as horror project wasn't proving Fox learned absolutely nothing from its success. Fox wasn't this mastermind operation to making these mature movies it was sheer dumb luck. Which we all are thankful that it happened. Lastly we already see Tom Rothman handy works at Sony with Venom. People out here blaming "Disney" when Warner with DCEU, Sony and Fox all pass on doing R "stories" make them PG13 and everybody knows why it is happening except couple of people in this thread.Fox producer Tom Rothman, known for his meddling, would come in and hire Hitman writer Skip Woods to overhaul David’s Origins script completely, I’m doubtful the final product looked anything like the original draft. The producers (Rothman) and director Gavin Hood were said to be responsible for gutting his script for a PG-13 rating, and it turning it into one of the worst X-Men films.
Rothman’s reign of micromanaging wouldn’t stop there, as he would have Hood’s sets completely redone to make them more lighter and less scary, the producer was known for his distain for the comic book movies and actively attempted to put up as many roadblocks to their success as possible.