Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam has been positively intriguing enough over the past few months to make the audience nitpick every piece of information thrown their way. If The Rock’s fanbase was not enough already to bolster its reception, it comes with the additional party left behind by Snyder and the new generation of DC fans. That makes the origin of DCEU 2.0 a story to be told for generations to come, depending on the margin of Black Adam‘s success.
Black Adam Receives a PG-13 Rating For Violence
Granted it’s no Deadpool with his unconditional humor balancing out all the slash and gore, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson‘s Black Adam is still sufficiently violent to raise the adrenaline of SnyderVerse-worthy fans. The antihero whose origin dates back 5000 years has risen in the present day to unleash his justice upon society and in his understanding, he is the judge, the jury, and the executioner. Mostly, though, the latter.
Also read: DCEU Reportedly Developing Black Adam Spinoff Series on Hawkman
Keeping in tune with the original comics, and respecting the fundamental element that makes Black Adam who he is, The Rock was adamant about integrating that violence in his debut film. But given how the Motion Picture Association of America is an institution that not only needs to rate a film but judge whether it’s “good to go”, so to speak, the MPAA needs to award each movie with a rating after the necessary amount of censors.
For Black Adam, in its final round with the MPAA, the censorship extended to obliterating almost half the scenes that dictated the film’s violent tone, finally granting it a ubiquitous PG-13.
Black Adam Producers Talk About the Censored Scenes
Black Adam producers, Beau Flynn and Hiram Garcia have recently spoken about the scenes which were deemed too extreme to be released in the theatrical cut. According to them, they had had to go “four rounds [with the MPAA], and [the movie] just got the PG-13, I think, maybe four or five weeks ago… It was an obligation that we had to the fans.”
Luckily, playing by the rules (for now) and getting Black Adam to where it should be in the assumed hierarchy, allows DC the chance to push for more during the sequels or even the broader DCEU 2.0 in the future. But, in the meantime, Flynn and Garcia lament the scenes that will remain within the vault.
“We did have to make a lot of edits, actually. There are some personal moments that we really love, but we had to let them go. But we never compromised, we never had to cut a scene. We had some really cool moments, and if you notice, there are some great moments when Black Adam is in the fly bike chase sequence and drops one of the intergang soldiers. 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 MPAA on that.”
Perhaps, the violence got so bold that it resorted even Hawkman to chide Black Adam to stop his streak, as seen in the trailer. But that compromise with the MPAA means that the fans will be missing out on the R-rated cut of the film in favor of its more audience and family-friendly theatrical release.
DC Fans in Uproar Over Black Adam‘s Vaulted R-Rated Cut
If history has taught us anything, it’s the fact that comic book movie fans love a spectacle. This property has made the Marvel franchise successful, with movies like Winter Soldier and Civil War, and the Infinity Saga. DC for a long time remained behind in the race relying on films like Green Lantern. But that changed with Christopher Nolan’s standalone Dark Knight trilogy and Zack Snyder resumed where Nolan left off with his DC Extended Universe vision.
With the future of the original DCEU now lost in the wind, it’s Dwayne Johnson’s reassurances that are keeping all hopes alive for the return of a semblance of that angst that the audience feels illegally deprived of. Black Adam‘s losing out on that R-rating is a reminder of that loss and the fans are not taking it kindly.
The MPAA originally gave ‘BLACK ADAM’ a R Rating before cuts were made to the violence to bring it down to PG-13.
(Source: https://t.co/XRHiPCKiQ0) pic.twitter.com/DwBYkNcc5F
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) October 17, 2022
They were ready to give The Avengers an R rating for Coulson’s impalement. Nothing the MPAA does anymore surprises me
— Brian Costello (@BrianRCostello) October 17, 2022
“Black Adam: The Unhinged Cut”
— Fern 🇪🇨 (@nanaueishere) October 17, 2022
I get why since they wanna appeal to more audiences but an R Rated Black Adam film would’ve been sick to see
— 🤷♂️ (@Acomicfan52) October 17, 2022
— Nicholas (@NicholasPascar5) October 17, 2022
#Releasetheblackadamcut ‼️ pic.twitter.com/telxl2vclc
— 𝙶𝚒𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚎✖️✖️// #RENEWSANDMAN⏳🎃🔪👻 (@giselleb1234) October 17, 2022
I cant speak for everyone, but personally, I'd like to see the writers true rendition of the character, not watered down, censored stuff that's cut down to an incoherent pile of nothing. If the writers wrote a darker story, then it's a matter of causation not correlation
— Antonio (@BlueSage_19) October 17, 2022
DC: “Too violent!!! We won’t get the kid viewers!!!!”
Me sitting in opening night of Halloween Kills last year, sitting next to a child slobbering all over his popcorn and nachos
— Fredbear-Delamater (@Ethan67840052) October 18, 2022
With the crowd upset over the missed R-rated theatrical cut, it seems like an unfiltered and more raw extended version of Black Adam could find a possibility of release when it’s out on home video services or BluRay.
Black Adam premieres on October 21, 2022.
Source: Collider
