Snowmaker

Seriously. I was just looking at the showtimes of some of my local theaters and noticed the only R-rated movie playing at any of them is Next Day Air.

Do PG-13 movies really rake in that much more money than if the same movie was R-rated? It was bad enough when we got a PG-13 Die Hard movie. Now we have a Terminator one coming out.

Even most horror movies that come out nowadays are PG-13.

thematahara

Fuckin' A!

islandclaws

Anyone can see a PG-13 rated movie, so a film with a much broader audience will rake in more money. You need to get a big majority of the over 17 crowd excited to see a film opening weekend to pull in huge numbers. Teenagers, with their limitless time, will rush out opening weekend for something they can easily get into. Many will just buy a ticket for a PG-13 rated film to sneak into the R-rated one if they are denied.

I do agree, however, that we need more R-rated films. I don't necessarily need more sex/blood/violence/language/etc, but having the R-rating there is like a security blanket telling me to expect almost anything. With PG-13 you can guess fairly easily the max they're going to take the film.

DonnachaOne

Yes. R films cancel out the teen audience - even if hundreds or thousands do sneak by. That's strike one. Also, there's a lot of the adult audience that don't want to see anything with too much violence or sex, and if a film is R-rated those are typically used as selling points in a lot of advertising. Strike two. Then of course there's the now-inevitable "unrated cut" which accompanies so many DVDs which another chunk of the audience would rather wait for. Strike three.

Sidney Lumet once said a movie had better have something important to say if it's longer than two hours. Now it's the same if it's rated R. Otherwise it'll be cut down/reshot to maximise paying audience.

Doughboy

Everything is geared toward the teen audience these days. Horror movies, action flicks, comedies, and franchise entries(even R-rated staples like Alien vs. Predator, Die Hard, and Terminator).

About the only thing that's immune is the torture porn genre since a PG-13 rating would reduce it to 3 minutes in length.

The end result for me personally is I avoid the theater a lot more. Why bother wasting money on a watered-down version of a movie you know will be offered in an unrated cut within 4-6 months?

Snowmaker

I'm just glad Kevin Smith has not given in to watering down his movies. He would not be who he is without R-ratings. One of my favorite parts of the Zack & Miri making of is when he talks about having to fight with the MPAA to get that movie cut down from an NC-17 to a hard R.

RichC2

Lest we forget Jersey Girl.

Snowmaker

I didn't forget that one, I just chose not to acknowledge it.

fumanstan

Calling chris_sc77 to the thread...

Oddly enough, there's been a lot more R rated comedies lately, although this year is pretty bare compared to last year.

Chad

I remember the IFC documentary "Indie Sex" stated that in 2006(?) 85% of films being released in America were rated PG-13. The sad fact is the majority of these films are being cut from their initial R-rating simply to fill more theater seats.

Honestly, when slasher films are rated PG-13....

Exactly.

Rypro 525

well july/august has its nice fair share of R rated flicks (funny people, inglorious basterds, public enemy

Travis McClain

Think back to Field of Dreams: "If you build it, he will come." Well, the under-17 crowd built the reliable audience, and PG-13 movies are coming. You want more R-rated movies? Find a way of getting the 18 and older crowd to consistently show up at a theater. Good luck with that, for a variety of reasons:

Alienated by theater admission price being much higher than when they started paying for their own tickets

Alienated by younger crowd's distracting behavior at theater

Prefer their home theater system that they could afford, due to not being a teen

Prefer DVD cuts to theatrical cuts

Don't go to theaters much anyway, because they don't show enough "real" (i.e., art house/indie) movies

Work schedules/family obligations/etc. that they have (that the younger crowd doesn't) interfere with regular movie-going

Less impressed by obvious re-hashes of movies they've already seen that the younger crowd hasn't seen

Any combination thereof

Shilex

I got yer rated R movie right here....in my pants!

(well, actually it could be either rated R or NC-17 depending on how long I let you see it and what I'm doing with it)

Ash Ketchum

Well, a perfectly good R-rated movie came out last December and it delivered the R-rated goods and none of you went to see it: PUNISHER WAR ZONE. Granted, Lionsgate released it at exactly the wrong time, when action fans had already been sated by QUANTUM OF SOLACE and TRANSPORTER 3 (both of which paled in comparison to PWZ, if you ask me). But it was one of the three best films I saw in a theater last year.

chris_sc77

Dont get me started...

mcnabb

?????????????????

Plain & Simple. That is the problem with summer movies these days, they are worried about the audience before they shoot the damn movie! Just think if Jaws were filmed today, they would never have a kid get eaten by a shark, because they may get an R rating!

MR Round

I haven't paid any attention to the rating of a movie in years I just watch the damn thing. I don't see why people complain so much you cant change it so just watch the movie regardless of rating(swearing,nudity,violence) because thats the movie were getting

Chrisedge

RT: 26% Consensus: Punisher: War Zone recalls the excessively violent, dialogue-challenged actioners of the 1980s, and coincidentally feels two decades out of date.

mikehunt

you have that right. I was tempted to punch the fucktards behind me at startrek

Travis McClain

My wife and I took my 13 year old cousin to see a 7:00 opening night showing and we were surprised at how well behaved everyone was. It didn't hurt, I'm sure, that most of the audience were older folks. I never even heard or saw a cell phone!

Artman

There probably are on average fewer R rated movies nowadays... but I don't think it's as dramatic as we might think. We still get R rated action movies and epics, and there are plenty of raunchy comedies and horror each yr imo. As long as the intensity of a movie is where I think it should be, the rating is secondary.

Bluelitespecial

It seems like there will still be some R rated movies this summer, but they probably won't show up until late July or August. I just wish we could see a good Bruckheimer R rated action flick again.

Bluelitespecial

I don't think anyone was really in the mood to see it at Christmas time. It might have done better in January like Rambo.

Artman

We're close with Tony Scott's R-rated Pelham 123 in June...

PopcornTreeCt

Seriously? Was it more penis? It's a shame you have a "hard R" movie about porn and your lead actress does not show anything. Has he learned nothing from Boogie Nights?