MPAA Officially Delivers 'R' Rating For The Expendables
The last few weeks have seen a bit of back and forth about how Lionsgate would release The Expendables; to hear producer Avi Lerner tell it, test audiences would have at least some influence on the rating depending on their reactions to PG-13- and R-rated cuts. But more evidence emerged today that the film will arrive in the theaters the way Sylvester Stallone intended. And I think we all know what he intended.
The latest batch of MPAA ratings have The Expendables rated R for "strong action and bloody violence throughout, and for some language." On the one hand, that rating's not really news; Lionsgate said as recently as last week that it always planned to release the mercenary action thriller with an R-rating. (And they've already began marketing it as such.) And technically, Lerner can still maintain his plan to test away with whatever sanitized cut he wants. On the other hand, the obvious catch now is that there officially is no PG-13 version to test, unless it's coming later -- which could always happen. But with the film opening Aug. 13, I'm not sure how much later they want to test a movie that's already been delayed months and has its audience pretty much set to begin with.
Anyway, there's always time to screw up a perfectly good thing, so I'll just append a "developing" here and check back in if/when the 'Gate loses its nerve. But don't count on it.
Also: The Search For Santa Paws won a hard-fought PG. High-five, Disney.
· MPAA ratings: June 23, 2010 [THR]
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The Search For Santa Paws won a hard-fought PG? I guess they had to cut out the "doggy-style" scene!
ZING!
God bless you.
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R ratings can hurt films anymore because of teen audiences. Look at the last Die Hard, which was as big as the two before that. Had it been rated R and they lost the younger audience it would have made 25% less box office or even more. My problem with R rated films are I dont like to watch movies with 100 F words in them. The violence dont bother me unless it's ultra violent like the last Rambo film was. That movie was overly bloody, violent, and profanity laced throughout! I curse myself on occasion and in real life people most dont say the F word every minute. Kids and children dont need to hear that and they watch movies as well. The old R rated movies were not like that, they just have to push things farther and farther to make them more vulgar, more extreme, and more violent! People who love their R rated movies are in a minority, the biggest box office hits are the G/PG/PG13 rated films. The direct to vodeo market are the ones that are mostly R rated and they dont make billions of dollars!