Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam was originally rated R

Last Updated on October 20, 2022

Although we’ve been seeing more R-rated comicbook movies in recent years, it’s definitely not the norm for mainstream Marvel or DC fare. Keeping bloodshed and deaths to a minimum fits with the superhero code, but it doesn’t exactly suit a character like Black Adam (Dwayne Johnson). While chatting with Collider, Black Adam producers Beau Flynn and Hiram Garcia said that the film actually landed an R-rating when it went before the MPA.

“We really wanted to make sure that we honored the character of Black Adam. 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,” Hiram Garcia said. “So we always went into this knowing that we were going to push it as far as we did. We knew it was going to be a collaborative process with the MPA to finally get it to where we were able, to get that rating, but we were able to pull it off. But it was really important for us to do that. And that’s something Dwayne was very committed to as well.” Beau Flynn added that it took “four rounds” of cuts with the MPA before the movie got its PG-13 rating. As for what gave Black Adam its initial R-rating, Flynn said that the original cut had almost twice the number of scenes in which Dwayne Johnson’s character kills another with “extreme violence.“

We did have to make a lot of edits, actually. There are some personal moments that we really love, but we had to let them go. But we never compromised, we never had to cut a scene. We had some really cool moments, and if you notice, there are some great moments when Black Adam is in the fly bike chase sequence and drops one of the intergang soldiers. 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.

Jaume Collet-Serra directed Black Adam from a screenplay by Adam Sztykiel and Rory Haines & Sohrab Noshirvani. The long-belated superhero adventure stars Dwayne Johnson as Teth Adam, who was bestowed with the almight powers of the gods in ancient Kahndaq. After using these powers for vengeance, he was imprisoned, becoming Black Adam. Nearly 5,000 years have passed and Black Adam has gone from man, to myth, to legend. Now released, his unique form of justice, born out of rage, is challenged by modern day heroes who form the Justice Society: Hawkman, Dr. Fate, Atom Smasher and Cyclone. Based on the first reactions to the film, it looks like we’re in for a good time.

Black Adam will hit theaters on October 21st.