Batman
Batman is essentially a psychopath hunting for psychopaths in a city that seems to be run by psychopaths. This is prime territory for an R-rating.
Daredevil
Marvel and Netflix have rescued Daredevil’s legacy from the Affleck era and seem to be moving in this direction already. All that’s left would be to transfer Charlie Cox‘s blind vigilante to the big screen.
Wolverine
With Fox recasting many of the X-Men for younger stars, Wolverine may be due for a facelift soon. Hopefully, that means an edgier film that truly shows what Logan is: an animal living amongst us.
Cassandra Cain
“Jessica Jones” has shown that a female superhero can not only kick ass, but can be tortured and dark. Cain’s backstory is frightening — she’s the daughter of two assassins who abused her as a child in order to mold her into the world’s deadliest assassin. She served for a time as Batgirl before traveling to Asia to find and kill her parents. Not a PG kind of story.
Punisher
Yes, the Punisher has already gotten a R-rated film, but it never felt like it’s been done right. Again, it looks like Netflix is moving in the right direction. Maybe Jon Bernthal will headline his own film someday.
Spawn
Though a cult-classic film came out in 1997, its overall campiness and cheap special effects prevented Spawn from catching on. We’d love a new, grown-up take on the story of an ex-assassin who was murdered before selling his soul to the devil to come back.
Starfire
Starfire’s relationship misadventures could lead a comedy in the vein of “Bridesmaids” for a fresh take on the superhero genre.
The Boys
When superheroes get reckless and endanger the world, the government sends in…The Boys. They’re a group of super-enforcers who keep heroes in line. There was talk in the past about an Adam McKay adaptation, but that was before he turned his attention to real global disasters with “The Big Short.”
Lobo
A villain who morphed into an anti-hero, the ultra-violent Lobo was intended to be an indictment of Marvel’s Punisher and Wolverine. However, his popularity shot through the roof, and he even became Stan Lee‘s favorite DC character. A planned film adaptation starring Dwayne Johnson has been indefinitely delayed.
X-Force
Essentially a more militant and aggressive form of the X-Men team, X-Force could lead the new Fox films in a grittier direction. With the introduction of Psylocke and the recasting of key X-Men, many pieces of an original X-Force team should be in place after “X-Men: Apocalypse.”
