Apparently there’s enough footage of Ryan Reynolds performing some adult humor for Detective Pikachu that they could have easily made it into an R-rated film.
We know Ryan Reynolds best for performing in the Deadpool series where the foul-mouthed mercenary utters things that would never make it into a Disney film (although Marvel is owned by Disney, so technically it is a Disney film). One look at Reynolds’ IMDB page reveals that while there are the occasional PG-13 and PG film, here and there, he mainly takes adult roles in adult films.
Detective Pikachu is not an adult film; it’s actually rated PG, despite the occasional fart joke (as seen in Detective Pikachu’s more recent Twitter trailer). However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a ton of raunchy jokes hidden away at the Warner Bros. production company. Maybe even enough of it to make a rated R cut of the film.
According to an interview with Kotaku, Reynolds said that he’d deliver something like “85 options for any one joke” recorded in the film.
“Motion capture is a unique experience in which you are alone and you throw a billion things up against the wall,” explained Reynolds. “It’s up to somebody else to sift through it and figure out what they think is going to be applicable and what they feel they want to use.”
Since Detective Pikachu is being targeted at children and their families, that means nixing any of the more explicit material that Reynolds delivers. Tragically so, as Reynolds’ delivery for even the raunchiest of jokes is nothing but superb.
“You could probably squeeze together a Rated-R cut if someone went looking for it in the edit,” Ryan added. “God forbid they would.”
Sadly, it seems very unlikely that Nintendo would ever allow a Rated-R version of the movie to exist. Game Freak and Nintendo have carefully avoided changing Pokémon’s image to appeal to a more adult audience, and not even Reynolds’ wit and charm is likely to convince them otherwise.
But if you see an R-rated bootleg out there, send it our way. We’d love to see it.