Ryan Reynolds pitched an R-rated Star Wars movie, but not for him to star in

Star Wars has never released an R-rated movie.

By Joe Allen Published May 26, 2025

star wars qui-gon jinn — Star Wars/Facebook / Lucasfilm

Ryan Reynolds has been more than willing to push the envelope at major studios. His Deadpool & Wolverine was a major success for Marvel Studios even though it was also their first R-rated movie, and now, he’s revealed that he’s interested in doing something similar for Star Wars.

In a recent interview on the “The Box Office” podcast with host Scott Mendelson, Reynolds revealed that he had pitched the studio on its first R-rated film in a galaxy far, far away.

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“I pitched to Disney, I said, ‘Why don’t we do an R-rated “Star Wars” property? It doesn’t have to be overt, A+ characters. There’s a wide range of characters you could use,’” he explained. “And I don’t mean R-rated to be vulgar. R-rated as a Trojan horse for emotion. I always wonder why studios don’t want to just gamble on something like that.”

It would be a major first for Star Wars, which has only ever gone up to PG-13. There’s some precedent, though, for a Star Wars story that addresses heavier themes, as Andor just concluded a hugely acclaimed two-season run. Reynolds didn’t offer any details on the plot of his story, but he did clarify that he wasn’t necessarily pitching the movie as a vehicle for himself.

“I’m not saying I want to be in it. That would be a bad fit,” he said. “I’d 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 of Disney+, but you can certainly still surprise people.”

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Joe Allen is a freelance culture writer based in upstate New York. His work has been published in The Washington Post, The…

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