WHEN Fox turned up at last summer’s Comic Con to promote Hugh Jackman’s upcoming and final “Wolverine” movie, the studio revealed a teaser image showing the brooding mutant superhero giving the middle finger, or rather, middle claw.

    That early piece of marketing was a signal that Jackman and the filmmakers wanted to up the intensity factor and make an R-rated movie — long before Fox’s “Deadpool” proved this month that superhero movies don’t need to be rated PG-13 to become mega hits at the box office.

    Insiders say the untitled “Wolverine” threequel, which James Mangold begins shooting in a month, was always designed as a movie that would receive an R from the ratings board once finished because of the level of violence (and likely language) in the script written by Michael Green.

    Though the success of “Deadpool” can’t hurt. The Ryan Reynolds-starrer has amassed more than US$500 million worldwide since opening in theaters less than two weeks ago, and is virtually assured of becoming the top-grossing R-rated title in history, eclipsing “The Matrix Reloaded” (US$742.1 million), not accounting for inflation.

    “Wolverine 3” is scheduled to hit theaters March 3, 2017. Mangold also directed Jackman in “The Wolverine” (2013). There had been talk of making that film, as well as “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” (2009), R-rated, but both films went out with a friendlier PG-13.

    Speculation about the “Wolverine 3” rating hit social media last week after the New York Toy Fair, where a pamphlet allegedly distributed by Fox revealed that the film anticipates receiving an R rating.(SD-Agencies)