“Black Adam” is rated PG-13 for “sequences of strong violence, intense action and some language,” but it turns out the first several cuts of the film were even more violent. Producers Beau Flynn and Hiram Garcia confirmed to Collider that “Black Adam” originally earned an R rating, and it took “four rounds” of cuts for the MPA to agree to lower the rating to the team’s desired PG-13. The crew always knew it wanted “Black Adam” to push the limits of PG-13 violence considering the title character’s comic book roots.
“We really wanted to make sure that we honored the character of Black Adam,” Garcia said. “One of the things he’s known for is his aggression and violence, and to do a Black Adam movie that didn’t have that just wouldn’t have been authentic. So we always went into this knowing that we were going to push it as far as we did.”
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Flynn added, “It took four rounds [with the MPA], and [the movie] just got the PG-13, I think, maybe four or five weeks ago.”
How much of the film needed to be cut? “We did have to make a lot of edits, actually,” Flynn said. According to the producer, the original cut of the film had Dwayne Johnson’s title character violently killing up to 10 different people. The production scaled that number down to around five to secure a PG-13 rating.
“There are some great moments when Black Adam is in the fly bike chase sequence and drops one of the gang soldiers,” Flynn said. “Then there’s this great moment where the truck bounces over the body. But those are moments that you need and remember in these movies, you know what I mean? You can’t play it safe, and you have to go for it. And I think we have four or five of those. At one point we had about ten, and we were able to find some compromise with the MPA on that.”
“Black Adam” opens in theaters on Oct. 21, courtesy of Warner Bros.
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