The upcoming “Black Adam” film sports a considerable amount of violence as, unlike some other heroes of the DC Universe, Dwayne Johnson’s title character has no compunction about killing.
The character uses his powers to impose his twisted vision of justice, which includes summarily executing any criminal and leads to the Justice Society of America trying to stop him.
Though it’s rated PG-13, producer Hiram Garcia confirms to Collider that the sheer amount of slaughter in the narrative had the movie sporting a R-rating for much 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.”
Producer Beau Flynn added that it took “four rounds” with the MPAA to get the movie to a PG-13 which it only received around a month ago. In terms of what had to be edited out, the film reportedly had almost twice as many scenes with Johnson brutally killing an enemy:
“We did have to make a lot of edits, actually… But we never compromised, we never had to cut a scene… You can’t play it safe, and you have to go for it. And I think we have four or five of those [memorable moments]. At one point we had about ten, and we were able to find some compromise with the MPAA on that.”
Though the R-rated version won’t hit cinemas, could it come to home video? Flynn says: “there are going to be some features for when we release on home video and streaming.”
“Black Adam” is set to be released in theaters on October 21st.
