MPAA News

Midsommar is a 2019 USA horror mystery thriller by Ari Aster.
Starring Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor and William Jackson Harper.

A young American couple, played by Florence Pugh and Jack Reynor, fly to a rural town in Sweden for a once-in-a-lifetime midsummer festival after experiencing a death in the family. Not long after the couple's arrival, their trip unfolds into a hallucinatory nightmare when the visitors are invited to drink some sort of concoction that seemingly screws with their perception of time, and are targeted by the sinister leaders of a pagan cult.

The Daily mail has somewhat uncharacteristically published an article about censors cut and a Director's Cut for Ari Aster's Midsommar.

Film producer A24's critically-acclaimed horror film Midsommar is winning rave reviews from fans and critics alike, who will get to see an even longer version soon.

Midsommar writer-director Ari Aster held a Reddit Q&A, where he was asked about a potential director's cut, and reports that he had to cut a whopping 80 minutes from the theatrical cut, which spanned a lengthy 147 minutes.

Aster was asked if the director's cut will be part of the film and not just a special feature, while the director responded by saying the extended cut will have a half hour of new footage.

Another fan also asked if the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) gave them any trouble for a scene involving Jack Reynor having an erection. Aster responded:

Yes, we had an NC-17 for 6 weeks. Lots of back-and-forth with them

Update: Director's Cut confirmed

20th July 2019. See article from hypebeast.com

Ari Aster's director's cut is now confirmed and is set to debut next month in New York City.  The screening will take place at the Lincoln Center in New York City on August 17 and will be titled as a Director's Cut as opposed to just an extended cut.

On the 30 minutes of additional footage, Aster has teased:

A more nuanced picture of Harga, more rituals and more nuance for the relationship between Dani (Florence Pugh) and Christian (Jack Reynor), and more by way of the thesis competition between Josh (William Jackson Harper) and Christian.

The Current War is a 2017 USA historical biography by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon.
Starring Tom Holland, Benedict Cumberbatch and Tuppence Middleton.

Starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Thomas Edison and Michael Shannon as George Westinghouse, THE CURRENT WAR is the epic story of the cutthroat competition between the greatest inventors of the industrial age over whose electrical system would power the new century. Backed by J.P. Morgan, Edison dazzles the world by lighting Manhattan. But Westinghouse, aided by Nikola Tesla, has seen fatal flaws in Edison's direct current design. Igniting a war of currents, Westinghouse and Tesla bet everything on risky and dangerous alternating current. Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) and written by playwright Michael Mitnick (Sex Lives of our Parents), THE CURRENT WAR also stars Katherine Waterston, Nicholas Hoult, Tom Holland, Matthew Macfadyen, and Tuppence Middleton.

The film is MPAA PG-13 rated in the US but only after cuts so as to tone down the consumer advice.

The film was originally uncut and MPAA PG-13 rated for some disturbing/violent images, and thematic elements.

The distributors made cuts and resubmitted the film. it was then passed PG-13 for some violent content and thematic elements.

Presumably the US version was cut to remove the disturbing images.

For comparison the film is uncut and 12A rated in the UK.

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw is a 2019 USA action adventure by David Leitch.
Starring Dwayne Johnson, Idris Elba and Eiza González.

Lawman Luke Hobbs and outcast Deckard Shaw form an unlikely alliance when a cyber-genetically enhanced villain threatens the future of humanity.

In this Fast and Furious spinoff, Dwayne The Rock Johnson and Jason Statham's characters find themselves having to stop Idris Elba s Brixton Lore from unleashing a deadly virus on humanity.

One of the big fights will unfold when Luke Hobbs, Deckard Shaw and Vanessa Kirby's Hattie Shaw team up with Hobbs family to clash with Brixton Lore and his goons in Samoa. Johnson shared how it was initially planned for him to bite and spit out his opponent's eye. He claimed:

Unfortunately the scene where I bite the bad guy's eye out and spit it on the dirt didn't make it. MPAA ratings board forbid us to show it because it was too violent.

PG-13 movies are granted a fair amount of leeway when it comes to action and violence, but naturally there are some things that are off limits within that rating. Luke Hobbs removing a man's eye from his socket would have been shocking, brutal and badass, but the MPAA wasn't having it, so we'll have to make due with Johnson's character simply tossing his adversary to the ground and bludgeoning him senseless.

Kelly McMahon is the new head of the MPAA's film ratings board, the Classification and Rating Administration (CARA).

The 46-year-old longtime corporate lawyer leads the small group of parents who anonymously assign ratings, ranging from G to NC-17, to hundreds of movies a year. She replaces Joan Graves, 77, who recently retired after 18 years as head of the ratings body.

McMahon, in her first interview since taking the helm, defended the ratings system, which she says has remained a reliable and essential tool for families navigating the multiplex. However, she says one of her first major goals is to reach out to parents, filmmakers and political groups -- including LGBTQ and religious organizations -- to hear their concerns.

She also wants to add more people to the rating board to ensure its decisions are representative of American consumers. The board currently employs only eight raters; McMahon wants to grow the board to 12. She also wants to address the once-common G (general audiences) rating, which has virtually disappeared from the industry.

Rocketman is a 2019 UK / USA musical music biography by Dexter Fletcher.
Starring Bryce Dallas Howard, Taron Egerton and Richard Madden.

A musical fantasy about the fantastical human story of Elton John's breakthrough years.

The film-makers behind the Elton John musical fantasy Rocketman have clashed with a Hollywood studio over a naked sex romp featuring Taron Egerton and Richard Madden.

Paramount Pictures have demanded that Rocketman director Dexter Fletcher and producer Matthew Vaughn cut a 40-second scene that shows Egerton, who plays the singer and Madden, cast as his one-time lover and manager John Reid, writhing on a bed. Fully exposed white derrieres are on display, but the nude escapade is tastefully done.

Nonetheless, Paramount are forcing the director to cut the scene so it will have an American PG 13 rating, maybe with an eye on repeating the success of the similarly sanitised gay sex in the Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody .

Unplanned is a 2019 USA drama by Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon.
Starring Ashley Bratcher, Brooks Ryan and Robia Scott.

As one of the youngest Planned Parenthood clinic directors in the nation, Abby Johnson was involved in upwards of 22,000 abortions and counseled countless women on their reproductive choices. Her passion surrounding a woman's right to choose led her to become a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood, fighting to enact legislation for the cause she so deeply believed in. Until the day she saw something that changed everything.

One of Hollywood's biggest faith-based film studios has found itself in an unlikely battle with the movie industry's ratings board.

Pure Flix , the Christian-aimed studio, was recently informed that next month's anti-abortion drama Unplanned would receive an R rating for some disturbing/bloody images , the first in the studio's history. That could make it a tough sell for the company's traditional family-friendly audience.

The MPAA R rating means that theatres will not allow anyone under 17, unless they're accompanied by a parent or guardian). The film received the rating due to a series of graphic abortion scenes.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the MPAA contends the R rating for Unplanned wasn't political, and was instead assigned because of some disturbing/bloody images. Pure Flix, which doesn't plan on appealing the decision, was clearly frustrated by the rating, as they were expecting a more on-brand PG-13. Pure Flix executive Ken Rather told the Reporter:

A 15-year old girl can get an abortion without her parent's permission but she can't see this movie without adult supervision?