Ryan Reynolds says he pitched an R-rated Star Wars project to Disney, but it’s unclear if it will actually get made.
The Deadpool actor shared details about some of his non-Marvel activities during a conversation on The Box Office Podcast. Although the moviemaking star failed to share whether it’s a pitch that the House of Mouse actually accepted or if it would be a movie or TV show, he did confirm some information about what his vision for such a project could look like.
“I pitched to Disney, I said, ‘Why don’t we do an R-rated Star Wars property?’” Reynolds said. “It doesn’t have to be like, an overt, A+ characters… there’s a wide range of characters you could use. I don’t mean R-rated to be vulgar. R-rated is a Trojan Horse for emotion, and I always wonder why studios don’t want to just gamble on something like that.”
Reynolds has had plenty of success in the R-rated movie world in the past. He was heavily involved in three of the top-five highest-grossing R-rated movies of all time: Deadpool, Deadpool 2, and Deadpool & Wolverine. Last year’s vulgar team-up Marvel movie starred both Reynolds and Hugh Jackman and actually remains the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time at more than $1.3 billion (via Box Office Mojo).
It’s hard to tell if this same success would transfer over to an R-rated Star Wars movie or show, but Reynolds at least says it’s something on his mind. That said, it isn’t the kind of project he’d like to be involved in on-screen.
“I’m not saying I would want to be in it; that would be a bad fit,” Reynolds added. “I would want to produce and write, or be a part of behind-the-scenes. Those kinds of IP subsist really well on scarcity and surprise. We don’t get scarcity, really, with Star Wars because there’s Disney+, but you can certainly still surprise people.”
Meanwhile, Reynolds is far from done with his time over at Marvel. Although the star isn’t convinced that he’d like to see his Merc with a Mouth join the Avengers, he has reportedly been quietly pushing for a Deadpool and X-Men movie for a while.
As for Star Wars, it sounds like it could be quite a while before we see such a project come to life. For more on how Disney plans to expand a galaxy far, far away, you can read up on Star Wars: Starfighter, a movie that Shawn Levy, who frequently collaborates with Reynolds, is working on. Details about it are light, but we do at least know that Barbie’s Ryan Gosling is attached to star.
Photo by Tristar Media/WireImage.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
