What is up with the trend of announcing the rating of a movie at the last minute?
 

Is there any rational reasoning?

I'm speaking mainly of movies like Alex and Emma, League of Extrordinary Gentlemen and Hollywood Homicide?

HH was announced 12 days before its theatrical release...

A&E comes out next Friday and still has no rating...

LXG still has a few weeks, but nothing yet...

This has never caught my attention until now.

The MPAA won't give you what you want, so you keep badgering and pretending to re-edit in hopes of getting it down a notch. LXG and HH both depend hugely on the audience that can casually see them and as such, getting the right rating is crucial.

I think its that the studios are editing them at the last second. I thought I saw that leauge... got a pg13.

Studio is tweaking them over and over again and submitting them to get a certain rating. this is why they go back and forth so many times.

I don't think this last minute thing is anything new ... I can't cite any specifics, but I know that over the years I've seen both print and TV ads that say the movie has not yet been rated.

Wow, I hope not. From watching the trailer it really looked to me like it had an R vibe to it.

I wonder if the MPAA is getting stricter about what they will allow in terms of violence? A lot of action movies seem to be getting R ratings initially and seem ridiculously watered down.

According to MPAA, its destined to be chick-flick now:

You can't get a rating until you have your final edit in the can. A lot of times the filmmakers will be working on the film until the last possible minute, and then submit it to the MPAA.

But now they have 7 days to print them all and get them out, that's just got to be stressful!

Generally they know what rating they are going to get, so they have the posters and such ready to go. The rating is often part of the director's contract.

Everything ultimately gets a PG-13 anyway.

Yeah, odds are that they always end up becoming PG-13. But the last movie (that I can remember) that wasn't "yet rated" but ended up recieving an R, was Point Break.

(Naked chick beating the tar out of Keanu was definetly the highlight) :D

I think you're right. Rather than last minute re-cutting to ge a PG-13 from the MPAA it really has more to do with working on the final cut untill the eleventh hour. LXG hasn't gotten a rating yet because it probably isn't done.

Why are people always shooting for the PG-13? I've seen some PG-13 movies that really weren't that bad in terms of violence or language and could have easily received a PG instead.

While a little early, I see Alex and Emma as being the big date movie of the summer along the lines of My Best Friend's Wedding and mopping up in the top five for several weeks.

PG-13 movies get a bigger audience because the younger audience thinks they're more "mature" for seeing slightly more risqué stuff. Look at some of the threads in this forum for examples...a good recent one would be the "uncut" Die Another Day thread.

I think it has as much to do with advertisements being out earlier and earlier as ratings being later.

And a lot of people think PG movies are for kids, so they aren't interested. Sad, but true.