In an interesting crossroad between the concept of respecting established cultural canon and Hollywood’s love of absolutely run roughshod over their source materials, former DCEU architect Zack Snyder has revealed that his previous Batman v Superman – Dawn of Justice faced an uphill battle against the American Motion Pictures Association because the organization’s ratings board did not “like the idea” of the two heroes coming to blows.
Snyder recalled the MPA’s bizarre ratings hold-up during a headlining appearance on the 2114th episode of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.
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After confirming to his host that an R-rated cut of his recent Netflix original film Rebel Moon duology both exists and is currently set for a release this summer, the director was pressed by Rogan as to how what, exactly, the MPA’s criteria was for each of their given ratings, to which he outright admitted, “Look, no one understands the ratings.”
“No one does,” Snyder explained. “It’s an alchemy that is is impossible to know. It’s all subjective and bizarre – and it’s also genre related! So, say for instance, the ratings board might say something like “Well, this is a sci-fi movie, so [this content] is too much. If it was a horror movie it’d be fine, but it’s a sci-fi movie so it’s not fine.'”
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His memory sparked by this explanation, the Man of Steel director then recalled, “That was the whole thing with Batman v Superman! I remember the ratings board said “We just don’t like the idea of Batman fighting Superman’.”
“I was like, ‘That has nothing to do with the rating!'” he then exclaimed. “They kept making it an R, coming back with an R for us, and we were like ‘What do you want us to cut out?’ And they were like ‘Well we just don’t like the idea of Batman fighting Superman’ and I was like ‘I can’t take that out! That’s the movie!’ So we really had to trim it.”
Asked in turn by Rogan if the rating’s boards opinion “affected the final version” of the DC crossover film, Snyder cheekily asserted, “I mean, if you see the director’s cut of Batman v Superman, it’s much better. It’s a much better movie in my opinion.”
Met with the further observation from his host that the director’s feelings towards his cut of BvS were heavily based on the fact that said cut was “representative of what you actually wanted to create”, Snyder concluded his thoughts on the topic by agreeing, “And I think that’s true of all the director’s cuts that I’ve done.”
“It’s just a glimpse into the ‘why,” said the Justice League director. “You get to see better the ‘why’ of the movie, the ‘why’ of its origin.”
At current, Snyder’s next film, Rebel Moon: Part 2 – The Scargiver is currently set to make planet fall on April 19th, 2024.
Meanwhile, the R-rated cuts of both Rebel Moon entries have yet to receive an official release date.