When you walk into the realm of Madea, you know you are in for some biting insults and remarks. The world created by Tyler Perry has consistently embraced fun vulgarity, to a point, but it has seldom moved into the world of hard-R raunch. However, with the upcoming release of Boo 2! A Madea Halloween, the spooky sequel found itself slapped with an R-rating when it was first screened for the MPAA. I recently had the chance to ask Perry about the reasons for the initially restrictive rating, and he attributed the rating to Madea's pot-smoking brother, Joe, and his foul language. Perry elaborated:
Just language. Joe. Out of control. His language was just really really rough and in PG you could only really say... they only give you so many curse words if you are going to stay PG-13. That was it, just language.
So while most of the other characters were able to keep the banter and the shenanigans within the more traditional PG-13 framework of a Madea film, Joe Simmons (one of the several personas portrayed by Tyler Perry) was a bit more of a loose cannon. If you know the universe, it is not hard to understand why this happened. After all, the core appeal of the character is the fact that he will say pretty much anything on his mind at any given time, and much of that involves lobbing obscenities, insulting his loved ones, and making advances on women decades younger than himself. If anyone was going to push the rating envelope for Boo 2! A Madea Halloween, then it kind of had to be Joe.
Check out a clip from my recent chat with Tyler Perry to see what he had to say about Boo 2! A Madea Halloween's rating troubles.
Boo 2! A Madea Halloween picks up one year after the events of the first Madea-inspired Halloween film. Taking aim at the well-worn Camp Crystal Lake trope, the film follows the Simmons family as they venture out to a supposedly haunted campground on Halloween night. The film is going into its opening weekend with some pretty lofty expectations, and it is even expected to knock out Gerard Butler's global warming-inspired disaster epic, Geostorm, at the box office.
Boo 2! A Madea Halloween will debut in theaters this weekend on October 20. If you're looking for a Halloween movie with a bit more of an edge to it, then check out our guide to upcoming horror movies that we're dying to see, and make sure to take a look at CinemaBlend's 2017 movie premiere guide, as well as our 2018 movie premiere guide, for more up-to-date information on the upcoming year's biggest movie releases!
