Killing Joke Film Has Been Rated R

The Killing Joke will be the first DC animated movie to be rated R

The Killing Joke is a brutal and violent story. Bringing it to feature film status, even animated, would require not compromising that brutality. But it still raises the question of if anyone would really let an animated comic book film be an R-rated movie. Despite the huge success of Deadpool, R-rated superhero films for the big screen are hardly anything new (Blade, Kick Ass, Watchmen, Sin City, etc.), but smaller animated films being for a mature audience are very rare.

So with this comes the news courtesy of EW, that the Killing Joke movie, starring longtime voices of Batman (Kevin Conroy) and his arch-rival, The Joker (Mark Hamill) has been officially rated R. This technically makes The Killing Joke the second Batman movie to garner a “R” rating (the director’s cut of Batman v Superman was rated R and it will most likely be out on video before The Killing Joke) and the first DC animated film to ever have an R rating. Though DC animated films have gotten more mature in general in recent years.

Next: Extended Preview Of The Killing Joke Movie

An “R” rating simply for the hell of it is a bad move, but the Killing Joke is a story that most likely needs an “R” rating in order to not compromise the story. It is and ugly and brutal tale, but also considered one of the most seminal comics ever made. We still don’t currently have an actual release date for The Killing Joke movie, but it is set to officially debut at this year’s San Diego Comic Con and release on all formats sometime this Summer, so hopefully we’ll hear more details and get an official release date when SDCC is going on July 21-24. Will this lead to adaptations of other “mature” DC stories? Which ones would you like to see? Let us know in the comments!