I've seen a few people, people who liked it, say BOP shouldn't have had an R-rating because it affected the box office and it's bringing up a mentality I see a lot of, which is people seeming more concerned with how much these films make than how good they are as films.

I understand box office can't be ignored but a lot of people seem to see it as more important and lament that films they loved weren't radically changed to allow them to do better.

It's truly odd to me as it's something I've never seen with any other films.

No one complained that if Refn had toned down the violence or made Ryan Gosling emote more, Drive would have done better.

No one criticized The Master by saying Freddy was so repellent audiences would never be able to fully get behind him and that would hurt it's success.

I honestly have to wonder if fans would have loved some other films as much if they hadn't done so well

If Endgame only made as much as TROS, would MCU fans have liked it so much?

Would DC fans have wanted TDK changed radically from what they loved if it hadn't made a billion?

And yeah maybe BOP would have done better without it's R-rating but then the drama, humor, action, and characters all would have been very different.

To put it simply, it wouldn't have been the film you enjoyed.

Is that really worth the trade off?