We Almost Got An R-rated ‘Black Adam’ Movie

DC Comics film Black Adam, starring Dwayne Johnson, is finally hitting theaters this week.

The trailer we’ve seen features plenty of brutal destruction from the titular character, but we could have gotten an R-rated version of the film that would have been even more violent.

This news comes as no surprise. After all, Black Adam tells the story of a rage-fueled, super-powered anti-hero who is seeking a unique form of brutal justice, after facing his own personal tragedy.

In a Collider interview with producers Beau Flynn and Hiram Garcia, they revealed that the movie was actually rated R throughout a good portion of its production time.

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. 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 MPAA 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.

— Hiram Garcia

Flynn points out that it took “four rounds [with the MPAA], and [the movie] just got the PG-13, I think, maybe four or five weeks ago.”

But what would an R-rated Black Adam film have looked like?

According to the producers, the film had almost twice the number of scenes where Johnson kills an enemy 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 MPAA on that.

— Beau Flynn

Overall, audiences will still be getting a Black Adam movie that’s true to the character, in spite of the edits. That said, Flynn also hints at more raw action in the home release version of the movie: “There are going to be some features for when we release on home video and streaming. There’ll be some cool elements for that too, but that’s something we’re talking about.”

In fact, a potential Black Adam 2 might deliver more extreme violence alongside other great ideas. Flynn explained, “We have so many ideas of how we can take to the next level and hope it [Black Adam] will be embraced in the way we’d like. Then it gives us such a great playing field to really push to a new level in future installments if we’re so lucky.”

Black Adam opens in cinemas on 20 October 2022.