by: S. Scott Stanikmas – Senior Staff Writer

By raking in $132M in domestic box office receipts, Deadpool proved that there is a market for more adult superhero fare (even if the “adult” film was filled with childish jokes and innuendo). So it’s no shock that FOX might be willing to take a chance on another popular film and give a well-received character a proper send off.

Pamphlets circulating around Toy Fair this weekend showed some of the studio’s upcoming films and an interesting tidbit showed that Wolverine III, the swan song of Hugh Jackman as everyone’s favorite fast-healing mutant, had an anticipated Restricted rating.

If FOX is planning to do the Old Man Logan storyline, this would be a smart move. The last Wolverine film was really good and about as violent as you could get with a PG-13 rating. But to do the massive body count and violence of the Mark Millar / Steve McNiven maxi-series, an R would allow them to do so much more.

This isn’t a direct result of Deadpool’s massive weekend take. These pamphlets were likely printed a few weeks in advance so FOX couldn’t possibly take that film’s returns into consideration. But I’m willing to bet the early good word on Deadpool made the execs think about the possibility of letting the third Wolverine film going mature.

Hugh Jackman even talked about this a few years back, but with a final script still in development it was anyone’s guess as to exactly what would happen. And it’s still just an anticipated rating. Things could change between now and the final cut of the film.

The last Wolverine film to star Hugh Jackman is tentatively penciled in for March 2017 with The Wolverine director James Mangold slated to return to sit behind the camera once again.