While it looked for a time like only audiences over the age of 17 would be admitted to go see Ivan Reitman's upcoming sports dramedy Draft Day, now it appears as though that won't be the case. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Classification and Rating Appeals Board has heard appeals from both the film's director and Lionsgate's President of Production Erik Feig, and after deliberation have ruled that Draft Day will be allowed to enter theaters with a PG-13 rating.
Orignally the film was going to have an R-rating due to "brief strong language," which is a polite way of saying that the word "fuck" was used one too many times. Weirdly, now that the movie has been reclassified it has also been given a new memo line reading, “brief strong language and sexual references.” Did they miss the sexual references the first time around or did they not bother to include it the first time around because the R-rating was barring children anyway?
This obviously isn't the first time that a film's rating has been overturned, as in the past few years we've seen titles like Blue Valentine and Bully undergo similar situations, but the news does further demonstrate why moving rating organizations are fairly useless in this day and age. Not only do they continually prove to be completely out of touch with the maturity of modern audiences - both old and young - their perspectives of what's considered okay and what's not flip around so much that there becomes no consistency to relate to. I think South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone put it best when they were part of a panel at the Paley Center back in 2000.
To get back to talking about Draft Day, the new film stars Kevin Costner as the general manager of the NFL's Cleveland Browns. The story chronicles all of the wheeling and dealing he does in order to try and secure his team the number one draft pick. Based on an original script by newcomer Scott Rothman and Nurse Jackie writer Rajiv Joseph, the film has an impressive ensemble supporting cast that includes Jennifer Garner, Tom Welling, Terry Crews, Sam Elliott, Frank Langella, Ellen Burstyn, Rosanna Arquette, Denis Leary, Chadwick Boseman, Chi McBride and more. Look for it in theaters on April 11th and check out the trailer below:
