While Deadpool & Wolverine set a Marvel Cinematic Universe record with its mature rating, the film’s director has revealed that at least one risque topic didn’t manage to escape the cutting room floor and how the film took that limitation in stride.

While Deadpool & Wolverine was chosen as the project that would officially bring both the merc with a mouth and weapon X into the family-friendly world of the MCU, fans were assured by the Deadpool 3 writers it would be rated R like the two films preceding it in the franchise. This was confirmed by the film’s released trailers, which featured humor clearly above the line of the usual MCU fare, leading to even higher anticipation for the project in the leadup to its July premiere.

While the company has gone so far as adding R-rated projects like Deadpool and Logan on Disney Plus in anticipation of the upcoming threequel, it’s recently been revealed that the creative team didn’t have carte blanche where the film’s content was concerned. Speaking to TotalFilm for the cover story of the latest issue, Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy revealed that limitations on what the R-rated feature couldn’t include were discussed early on, with one major topic being off the table from the start. “I’m so wary of what I can say but certainly there were early conversations about overt drug use,” Levy revealed. “And we thought that was an interesting conversation. Let’s actually write a dialogue scene about having had it.” The dialogue made it into the advance trailers for the film, with Ryan Reynold’s Deadpool making a cheeky reference to the exclusion.

Deadpool & Wolverine is certainly a strong experimental move, as it’s rumored that Daredevil: Born Again will be R-rated when it eventually releases on Disney Plus. While younger audiences are certainly more desensitized to violence, harsh language, and adult humor, the bold-faced use of illicit substances is certainly not on the same trend. Judging the market from that angle, it makes perfect sense that the powers that be at Disney would lay down the limitations they did concerning that subject matter. While the R-rating and all that it entails is central to the sort of humor and storytelling that Deadpool has come to embody, the realities of an expansionist mindset in a media landscape rapidly reaching demographic saturation makes it a must that anything liable to end up on Disney Plus only pushes the envelope in a direction that parents and shareholders are already comfortable with.

Despite the buzz brought on by the label, R-rated superhero films might be a pointless conversation overall, as the existing ratings systems become more and more inconsequential for audiences and even studios. With Deadpool & Wolverine guaranteed to draw people in across all demographics, this might be the most clear-cut sign that an R-rating isn’t quite the same as it was just a few years ago.

Deadpool & Wolverine is set for theatrical release on the 26th of July, 2024.