10 Things The X-Men Franchise Wishes It Could've Done Differently

7. Had An R Rating

Fans have complained ever since the early days of the X-Men movies that it makes no sense for the series' main character to be a mutant who stabs dozens of people to death with blades which emerge out of his fingers if that movie is going to be rated PG-13.

This proved especially problematic in X2's otherwise excellent mansion assault sequence, where Wolverine slaughters many of William Stryker's (Brian Cox) soldiers in distractingly bloodless fashion.

These movies are expensive and it's understandable that Fox wouldn't want to cut themselves off from a sizeable younger audience, but as Deadpool and Logan both went on to prove, R-rated X-Men movies could be both critical and commercial juggernauts.

Sadly the shift to more R-rated fare was too little, too late for a franchise that audiences had already begun to lose interest in by 2016.

But if the X-Men movies had sacrificed some of their budget for a more permissive content rating earlier on, the opportunity for more ambitious and adult storytelling would've been ripe for the taking.

Granted, the first two X-Men movies are extremely respectable examples of PG-13 superhero fare, even if they're lacking the edge necessary to take them to the next level.

In a world where a stripped-down, R-rated Joker origin story is likely about to crack $1 billion worldwide, was an adults-only X-Men movie really that much of a risk?