Max Payne director upset about potential R-rating

by Alexander Sliwinski { Sep 8th 2008 at 5:50PM }

Max Payne director John Moore is knee-deep in the battle to get a PG-13 rating for his movie. In an interview with Das Gamer, Moore really lets the expletives fly as he expresses his frustration with the MPAA ratings board, which allegedly told him his movie "feels R."

Moore goes on to express that after seeing The Dark Knight, he felt good about Payne getting a PG-13 rating, but that was obviously not to be. The as-yet unrated Max Payne is still a month away from its Oct. 17 release. On the bright side, if Moore has to make cuts to the film for those outrageously priced multiplexes, at least we'll get the unrated version on DVD in ... what, like three months? For the record, both Max Payne games received Mature ratings (17+) from the ESRB.

[Via Big Download]

Tags: max-payne, max-payne-movie

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Duke @ Sep 8th 2008 5:56PM

Just eliminate any scenes with shooting and it should be fine. Everyone loves a good G action flick!

Geist @ Sep 8th 2008 8:53PM

"The bullet was the final point on the exclamation mark."

(Scene missing)

*roll credits*

Albanian_Killa @ Sep 8th 2008 9:57PM

100% agree. Frankly, I'm glad this movie got an R rating. If it was something lower, it might've killed the movie for me.

PhilipWPerna @ Sep 8th 2008 5:59PM

The MPAA -- helping artists to compromise their vision since 1948.

Bass Masterson @ Sep 8th 2008 8:15PM

... only when the "artist's vision" exceeds that which can be allowed in theaters by common decency codes.

Seriously, get off your soapbox and try watching some mainstream entertainment. Everybody tries to go to the lowest-common-denominator, all the time. 16-year-olds bumping and grinding on MTV, explicit violence and swearing ... and everyone wonders why society is falling apart. Indecency does have an effect, and it's not as if the MPAA or anyone else STOPS you from making a movie. They just let you know that if you go too far, you'll have to restrict your audience. Waaaah.

Ryuukuro @ Sep 8th 2008 9:09PM

Not quite. Go see "This Film is not Yet Rated" and learn yourself somethin'. The MPAA, while partial to what studios want (usually), is more fussy about sex and swearing than violence.

Anyway, Max Payne NEEDS an R rating. The games were M rated. Why should the movie be PG-13? It will be more attractive if it's an R and teens will still be able to get in if their parents say okay. Most will probably shake their heads and buy the tickets for those kids who don't just sneak in.

The only thing I agree with (or disagree, you could say) is the rating for The Dark Knight. I loved TDK but it was rated too softly. While it was (thankfully) devoid of any serious gore except for Two-Face, it had enough violence to warrant an R, especially the pencil trick.

NBShermanator @ Sep 8th 2008 6:00PM

Even though they would make more money with that PG-13 rating, and it
would probably be better for them, Max Payne was a very very dark
video game (NOT THE BABY MAX NO! NO!) and should be R

Red Leader @ Sep 8th 2008 8:25PM

Agreed, and who the hell wants to watch a PG-13 version of an awesome mature game anyway? I don't.

DangerMouse @ Sep 8th 2008 6:02PM

Owned. The movie is now a butchered R-rated flick, as opposed to a butchered PG-13 one. They should've gone all out from the get-go. Awesome.

jaredgood1 @ Sep 8th 2008 6:02PM

There is a very good documentary on the MPAA called This Film is Not Yet Rated. It's got some problematic arguments, but it really does a good job outlining how the MPAA really doesn't operate under any hard, fast rules.

Hopefully Moore will be able to talk his current cut down to PG-13, since it sounds like he is happy with it in it's current state (and assuming that he is contractually obligated to bring it in at PG-13).

Wah-hah-ha! @ Sep 8th 2008 6:16PM

You're right. They have a very peculiar and arbitrary system, and are very secretive about letting that system be known to anyone.

FSK405K @ Sep 8th 2008 8:32PM

Great film, the lesson from which he should learn to have a company with more jerks in it send his film for classification.

To be honest, I'm not interested in watching a PG-13 Max Payne film. I'll wait for the unrated DVD if it's not R.

Courtney @ Sep 8th 2008 6:06PM

Director upset about R rating; fans rejoice

NukeAssault @ Sep 8th 2008 6:19PM

And how!

jaredgood1 @ Sep 8th 2008 6:36PM

Unless, of course, he is contractually obligated to make a PG-13 movie and will have to cut parts he is very happy with in order to appease a group of people who arbitrarily say "this is more violent/graphic/sexy than that" and thus ensuring that both director and fans can get upset.

Chedd @ Sep 8th 2008 6:14PM

Who cares what the rating is? It's not like anyone is going to see the movie anyway.

JonFitt @ Sep 8th 2008 6:17PM

Videogame movies are always good. I look forward to seeing this fine piece of cinema.

MaxShrek @ Sep 8th 2008 6:39PM

I saw the trailer. Must have slept through the parts of the story explaining the demons and fire and dead guy.

theoneneo81 @ Sep 8th 2008 6:50PM

Yeah i can agree with the Director Im still puzzeled on how in the world Beowolf Got a pg 13 rating and yeah i loved dark knight and maybe it was to Dark for that cause i know alot of people had ask me if its ok for the kids to say i almost say its a lil Dark for pg 13 and they sould see it first.

Makeseven @ Sep 8th 2008 7:05PM

even though the trailer was mostly confusing...i actually think it looks AWESOME. i work at amovie theater and we have a REALLY badass Max Payne poster that i want to steal...

plus, mark wahlberg is pretty cool.

and i dont think its a big deal if they cut it down to pg-13. anybody remember how awesome live free or die hard was even after being brought down to pg-13? and then those that wanted more got the unrated so it works out pretty well.

and as for the dark knight, i dont get why people say it should be r rated. there were no fuck words, or even shits. the violence is almost non-existant. almost each instance of violence is implied, but not seen. the mood and the emotional intensity is very strong and dark, but i dont think that should warrant an R.

a lot of people look at what a film is rated pg-13 for and are comfortable with taking a 9 year old. dark knight was one where i think you really should be of age. but then everybody is raised around different films and some people deal with it better than others.

wow. i just typed MUCH more than i intended to.

chispito @ Sep 8th 2008 7:08PM

I agree with him about Dark Knight, though. If any PG-13 movie should have been R, it was that one. Too bad the MPAA was playing favorites when they rated it.

Stan Wingson @ Sep 8th 2008 7:35PM

So what- John Moore is an absolute dick. I'm not surprised he found something to whine about. Just check out the behind-the-scenes DVD on Flight of the Navigator if you want to see why this guy is loathed...

AoE @ Sep 8th 2008 7:43PM

... do you mean Flight of the Phoenix? If so, can't you just tell us instead? I really really don't ever want to watch that movie or anything related to it; yet I am curious to hear about how this dude's an ass...

FSK405K @ Sep 8th 2008 8:35PM

Flight of the Navigator, really? I love Peewee Herman's voice. Too bad I'm the only one who laughed in the theater during Wall-E when it was spoofed. Bourgeoisie film morons!

rob @ Sep 8th 2008 7:54PM

i hate it when they try to get a pg-13. if the story takes it to a R then it needs a R don't dumb down it to get a pg-13 . i am so glad that the watchmen is getting a R rating and that what the director wants and the story will need to be a R to tell the story

Bones3D @ Sep 8th 2008 8:10PM

I'm kind of hoping this movie turns out to be good. Max Payne is still among the few PC games I occasionally play.

In the meanwhile, I was pretty surprised "Death Race" didn't end up with a game tie in from somewhere. It would've been nice to see either a next-gen version of Carmageddon or a decent follow up to Full Auto. (I wonder if GTA4 offers a carmageddon style race mode in the online options...)

Hootenanny @ Sep 9th 2008 1:12PM

If Mario Kart and The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay had a retarded baby, the result would be Death Race.

CanadianZero @ Sep 8th 2008 8:12PM

meh, oh well. if it becomes rated R, now worry for me. most movies that are rated R in the US are rated 14A (no one under 14 without an adult allowed) here in canada (but not always)

example: Tropic Thunder-R in the US, 14A in Canada.

arkweld @ Sep 8th 2008 11:24PM

the fact that he was aiming to take a dark thriller full of guns to a PG-13 rating means this guy doesn't get it and the movie is going to suck.

He's probably the one guy who thought editing John McClane's "Yi Pi Ki Yay M ..." in Die Hard 4 was good a idea.

TarandinoCassat @ Sep 8th 2008 11:38PM

I don't think some of you are seeing the problem here. He was intentionally scaling the violence he shot to stay strictly within his understanding of the totally undefined limits of a PG-13 rating. However, the MPAA, like their idiotic asses tend to do, thought that the movie "felt like an R", and rated it as such, screwing them out of a significant part of the audience (yes, people under 17 will still see it, but not nearly enough to make up for the losses). The MPAA has no guidelines or standards, and are prohibited from using other movies (like the Dark Knight) as precedent when rating movies. To hell with them.