The Ridiculous Reason Zack Snyder's Batman V Superman Kept Getting An R-Rating From The MPA
Seriously, this is dumb.
The MPA is a mystery. Very few of us, filmmakers included, don’t really understand how the ratings board operates, and why they find certain things offensive enough to warrant a PG-13, an R, or even an NC-17. You won’t believe the insane rule that they have when it comes to rating sex scenes. That rule basically came into play recently when Ana De Armas’ Marilyn Monroe movie, Blonde, bore the complicated NC-17 rating. But did you also know that the MPA could award R ratings simply because they felt weird about the kind of movie that a filmmaker was trying to make? This is what Zack Snyder shared recently following a screening of his Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which had to work overtime to get down to the friendlier PG-13 rating.
Snyder recently presided over a three-day celebration of his DC Movies, lovingly dubbed SnyderCon by the attendees. A Q-and-A session followed the Batman v Superman screening (which I was lucky enough to host), and the conversation came around to the R rating that BvS kept getting. You just won’t believe why. Snyder’s visual effects artist, John “D.J.” DesJardin, joined the post-screening panel and reminisced about the creative team’s fight to trim the film down to meet the MPA’s standards. As he recalled:
The “blood splat” that D.J. DesJardin referred to happens in the Batman warehouse fight. That scene alone is one of the reasons why Ben Affleck is the best Batman of all time. In case you haven’t watched that sequence in a while, it’s worth revisiting:
In all honesty, though, Zack Snyder also confessed to being really confused by the complaints of the MPA… mainly because he didn’t think that this was something they had any right to govern. As he told the crowd gathered in Pasadena to watch this cut of the movie, he explained:
For the time being, the SnyderVerse is stalled at three movies, given the fact that Warner Bros. let Snyder complete his “Snyder Cut” of Justice League. The studio now plans to go in new directions with these Upcoming DC Movies, under the guidance of James Gunn. Hopefully the MPA won’t find any of them to be too mean.
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Sean O’Connell is a journalist and CinemaBlend’s Managing Editor. Having been with the site since 2011, Sean interviewed myriad directors, actors and producers, and created ReelBlend, which he proudly cohosts with Jake Hamilton and Kevin McCarthy. And he's the author of RELEASE THE SNYDER CUT, the Spider-Man history book WITH GREAT POWER, and an upcoming book about Bruce Willis.