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This summer, Marvel's betting on blood. But is it working?

The House of Ideas is catering to a more mature audience these days; we look at how that's going for them.

Features by Grant DeArmitt, Staff Writer

Published on Fri Aug 02 2024

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You may not remember this, but when Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness came to theaters, MCU viewers were actually debating whether or not the film should be rated R. Though the Sam Raimi-directed sequel was a bit more intense and horror-leaning than other Marvel fare, the MPAA still felt it deserved a PG-13, but the debate itself gives you a good picture of where the Marvel brand was in terms of maturity. Two years later, however, Marvel has decided its audience is old enough for darker material.

This year, there are at least three major Marvel projects debuting across different mediums with a decidedly more adult take on the House of Ideas' roster of popular characters. It's a pretty major gamble considering the past decade of PG-13 history, so we at Popverse decided to dig into how successful they've been so far. Keep reading to find out.

Extremely successful - Deadpool & Wolverine

Provided that you've had any interaction with the outside world this week, I don't need to tell you that Marvel's biggest gory gamble has paid off in spades. Deadpool & Wolverine, the first R-Rated film set squarely in the MCU, has raked in $550 million as of this week, and opened to the tune of $200 million - the highest-grossing box-office debut of an R-Rated film in history. To be 100% fair, the movie had more going for it than its mature designation; the return of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, a cadre of killer cameos, and a blowout presentation at San Diego Comic-Con all surely played a part in the film's success.

But we can't help but think that an in-canon pegging joke didn't at least contribute.

Pretty successful - Blood Hunt: Red Band

On the comics front (where, remember, this all comes from), the biggest event of the summer wasn't a two-person team-up but a company-wide crossover, as the Marvel Universe took on a vampiric army in 2024's Blood Hunt. Appropriately, Marvel tapped the gas on gore for this event, releasing bloodier, explicit versions of each core comic in their newly-christened "Red Band" line of comics.

Across five months, the Red Band versions of Marvel's Blood Hunt consistently outperformed their PG-13 (Green Band?) counterparts. The more mature Blood Hunt #2 took the number 11 spot on the best-selling comics of May 2024, while #3 and #4 captured spots 16 and 24 (respectively) in June. With Blood Hunt #5 tracking to be a major status-quo shift in Marvel comics, we assume that Marvel's investment in red ink was a wise one.

Hard to say - Hit-Monkey: Season 2

As a huge Hit-Monkey fan, it pains me to admit this, but Marvel's third major wager of its sanguine summer is perhaps its weakest. Hit-Monkey, the raunchy, action-packed romp that features a killer capuchin and his murdered mentor, debuted its second season on Hulu in July, and while reviews have been generally positive (the season boasts an 80% on Rotten Tomatoes), Hulu has yet to release its streaming numbers. Traditionally, Hulu keeps lower streaming numbers to themselves, so while we can't confirm that the turnout isn't what the streamer hoped for, we can doubt it.

And no matter what the viewership numbers are, we can guarantee that the more you watch, the better the chances of a season 3 are. So speaking personally, I beg you to stream this show.

Whether a season 3 of Hit-Monkey happens or (I hate to think) not, we'd argue that Marvel's mature season has been a successful one for them. So what does this mean? Well, if we were the betting type like our pals at Marvel clearly are, we'd wager that there are more R-Rated entries to Marvel canon to come.

Here's hoping for an absolutely blood-soaked Doctor Strange 3.

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Grant DeArmitt: Grant DeArmitt (he/him) likes horror, comics, and the unholy union of the two. As Popverse's Staff Writer, he criss-crosses the pop culture landscape bringing you the news and opinions about the big things (and the next big things). In the past, and despite their better judgment, he has written for Nightmare on Film Street and Newsarama. He lives in Brooklyn with his partner, Kingsley, and corgi, Legs.