Share

• Print
• Email
• Facebook
• Reddit
• Digg
• Delicious
• Fark
• MySpace

Adam McKay Confirms R Rating for The Boys

Director Adam McKay (the upcoming The Other Guys, Anchorman) has long been rumored to take the helm on an adaptation of the Garth Ennis-scripted comic book series The Boys, with McKay more recently entering "talks" to direct the movie for Sony Pictures. While doing press for The Other Guys, McKay told Collider that fans should expect an R rating from the adaptation.

Oh God, it has to be R. Literally, it doesn't work unless it's R. When I talked to Sony, that's the first thing I said is "you know this has to be R." And, God bless Sony, one of the great studios, they were like, "No, we understand that," Immediately.

Why an R rating is so important may not be understood by those not familiar with the comic, which follows a CIA-backed group of superpowered individuals who "police" superheroes. In the world Ennis created, the superheroes are inspired by the well-known heroes of DC and Marvel Comics, but abuse their power because of a sense of entitlement, which often manifests itself in rather bawdy circumstances. A self-professed comic book geek, McKay compared The Boys to Watchmen, which spent over twenty years in development before it hit screens in 2009.

To me, it's — you know, people forget when the Watchmen [comic] came out, it was like '85 or '86 — that was a bombshell, that comic, no one had ever seen anything like that... I loved the movie. I was blown away by it visually... but it was a tough entry point for a lot of audience members, I think... The Boys is the current day Watchmen. I think it's the same thing as far as exploding myths of superheroes, looking at what a hero is, all the sort of signifiers of comic book lore and legend, and you place it in a time where monopolies and corporations have basically bought our country and you incorporate that as well.

While McKay admits he has previously said he "would never direct anything" he didn't write, he changed his mind after reading The Boys. Clash of the Titans screenwriters Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay wrote the adaptation that McKay says, "fingers-crossed," he is going to direct.

You know, we're talking, Sony and I have been talking about it. So it looks like it could happen.