Has The Batman age rating been confirmed? The eagerly awaited DC Comics movie is out next year and the first trailer from last year suggested a darker tone that made fans wonder, is The Batman rated PG-13 or R? Now it looks like The Batman’s PG-13 rating may have been confirmed thanks to a couple of merchandise reveals, including a prequel novel. Perhaps more surprisingly, fans are actually pretty okay with the idea.
Is The Batman age rating PG-13 or R?
While the official age rating for The Batman has not yet been confirmed, it seems very likely that the 2022 Batman movie will be rated PG-13. This is despite a number of recent major DC Comics movies featuring either Batman or Batman villains from the last couple of years being R-rated, including Zack Snyder’s Justice League, Joker, and this month’s The Suicide Squad.
Fans worked out that The Batman would most likely be rated PG-13 rather than R thanks to a few pieces of tie-in merchandise that have been spotted this weekend — all of which distinctly skewing towards a younger audience. The Batman: The Deluxe Junior Novel from Random House book publisher is a prequel story starring Batman (Robert Pattinson) and Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz) and is specifically aimed at readers aged 8-12. Additionally, some toys aimed at younger children also got revealed, including Batman in the new Batmobile.
Looks like merchandise for #TheBatman 🦇 is really starting to kick off close to DC Fandome 2. First some new The Batman figures from Spinmaster and now a Junior prequel novel.
Yup, the Batman is PG-13 pic.twitter.com/63pE7UjYUs
— VENGEANCE🦇 (@BatSource1) August 15, 2021
Warner Bros would not be producing such tie-ins or merchandise if the movie was aimed at a more mature audience. The fan response to this has largely been positive, with most people showing confidence that The Batman director Matt Reeves (who also handled the last two acclaimed Planet of the Apes movies) knows what he doing — although some remain disappointed that fans aren’t getting the first-ever R-rated Batman movie.
https://twitter.com/KirikaiDubs/status/1427168157442007044
There's no question that a PG-13 Batman can still be dark & gritty, but I feel we've already seen a lot of what a PG-13 Batman has to offer. Great or otherwise.
It'd be nice to see The Batman go for an R rating, push new limits that haven't quite been explored yet in film. pic.twitter.com/J33DO71yyv— 𝙅𝙤𝙝𝙣 𝙋𝙡𝙤𝙘𝙖𝙧 (𝘿𝙪𝙃𝙤𝙪𝙨𝙚) (@PlocarArts) August 16, 2021
The Batman’s current release date is March 4, 2022. It won’t be the only appearance of Batman in a theatrical movie next year either, since both Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton will play the Dark Knight in The Flash movie.