With $150 million at the box office in its first four days, Deadpool is now the most successful R-rated superhero movie ever. It's not the first to play with an edgier rating -- others that have come before it include Kick-Ass, Blade, Dredd, Watchmen and more -- but it is the first to absolutely conquer the box office in ways usually reserved for PG-13-rated summer blockbusters like, say, Guardians of the Galaxy or Avengers: Age of Ultron.

So what's next?

Well... probably more R-rated superhero movies, for starters. When The Hangover surprised the industry by grossing almost $500 million worldwide, its success helped usher in a new age of R-rated comedies that we're still seeing dominate theaters to this day. Not all of them were winners, of course, with most of the best coming from the same filmmaker, Paul Feig (Bridesmaids, The Heat, Spy), but Hollywood is known to serve us more of something that's successful.

We already know that Deadpool is getting a sequel, with writers Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese already hard at work on a follow-up that will include a character named Cable, who has ties to a larger ensemble of characters called the X-Force. Will all three be rated R, kicking off what's essentially a new R-rated cinematic universe?

We know Deadpool 2 will be stamped with an R rating (no release date has been announced yet), but X-Force is still up in the air. It's a larger ensemble similar to X-Men -- and could even include characters from the X-Men movies, like Psylocke (Olivia Munn) -- which means a bigger budget and higher risks when it comes to ratings. But a previous iteration of X-Force never got off the ground, and if one does move forward then it'll have to include both Deadpool and Cable. How can you put two R-rated characters in a PG-13 movie and still give audiences an honest representation of what they're used to seeing from them?

We've already told you how Deadpool could pop up in a PG-13-rated X-Men movie, with quotes from Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld, but only as a brief cameo. Taking an R-rated character and forcing him to fit into a PG-13 universe may be less risky than slapping an R rating on a big ensemble superhero movie. 

X-Men and Deadpool producer Simon Kinberg has gone on record saying he could "imagine a universe" where X-Force is R rated, and we don't just imagine it -- we see it happening. Expect Deadpool 2 and X-Force to counter all of the other PG-13 superhero offerings with a higher rating.

What about the X-Men?

Kinberg says the X-Men will most likely remain PG-13, adding, "I think the mainline X-Men movies have their own tone, which is a more operatic tone. It’s more dramatic, it is more PG-13 in a way."

But don't jump to any conclusions just yet. No one really saw this coming with regards to Deadpool, so chances are there will be a lot more conversations to be had. One property we could see with an R rating is Wolverine, with whom Deadpool has a lot of history. Take this stat, for example: In its first four days, Deadpool grossed more than The Wolverine did in its entire domestic run. 

Hugh Jackman's final turn as 'ol Wolvy hits theaters on March 3, 2017, and while the film is already deep into pre-production, a new image points toward Fox possibly targeting an R rating. This is apparently a pamphlet [via Comic Book] that was handed out at the recent Toy Fair in NYC. Notice that the current anticipated rating for Wolverine 3 is R.

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Though it may not stay that way, Fox may already be looking at giving fans what they've been asking for: a grittier, R-rated Wolverine movie. Plus, we wouldn't be surprised if the next iteration of Wolverine pops up in, say, an X-Force movie, perhaps as a way to give that film a little more street cred, so to speak.

This does not include any other studios that use Deadpool's wild success to launch their own R-rated superhero properties. They should use caution, though -- Deadpool wasn't a hit solely because of its rating. There were many other factors at play, including a fantastic marketing campaign that knew the movie's tone and knew how to sell it in creative ways.

Even Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn warns of a post-Deadpool future that includes an influx of R-rated superhero movies, saying on Facebook...

"So, over the next few months, if you pay attention to the trades, you'll see Hollywood misunderstanding the lesson they should be learning with Deadpool. They'll be green lighting films "like Deadpool" - but, by that, they won't mean "good and original" but "a raunchy superhero film" or "it breaks the fourth wall." They'll treat you like you're stupid, which is the one thing Deadpool didn't do.

But hopefully in the midst of all this there will be a studio or two that will take the right lesson from this - like Fox did with Guardians by green-lighting Deadpool - and say - "Boy, maybe we can give them something they don't already have."