Black Adam Was Originally Rated R Before Cuts

Black Adam is ready for worldwide release. It’s possibly the biggest film for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and the film is set in the DC Extended Universe. Now, the road to a PG-13 rating has been difficult.

When speaking to Collider, producers Beau Flynn and Hiram Garcia confirmed that “Black Adam” originally earned an R rating, and it took “four rounds” of cuts for the MPAA to agree to lower the rating to PG-13. The crew 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.”

“It took four rounds [with the MPA], and [the movie] just got the PG-13, I think, maybe four or five weeks ago.”

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Apparently, the film had to make a lot of edits. According to Flynn, the original cut of the film had Dwayne Johnson’s title character violently killing up to 10 different people. 

“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.”

It’s too bad we are not getting the brutal violent scenes. Maybe with an Ultimate Edition of Black Adam on home media? “Black Adam” opens in theaters on Friday,

What do you think of the multiple cuts to Black Adam? Sound off in the comments!