About a month ago, Max Payne received an R-rating from the MPAA (which makes sense, considering it’s based on a shoot-em-up video game about whores and Satanists.  Back then, director John Moore had this to say:

[Getting a PG-13 rating] continues to be a challenge. We’re right in the middle of it now. We’re suffering from what I call Batman blowback. The Motion Picture Association of America gave The Dark Knight a PG-13 rating and basically sucked Warner Bros. cock. I have a serious amount of issues with the MPAA. Did you know it was made up of volunteers? As if that somehow excludes them from some type of wrongdoing. You can’t serve on it if you’re a homosexual or if you didn’t grow up in a shared parenthood home. Go to their website and read their charter about what gives a fair and balanced view for typical parents [Editor’s Note: All the MPAA’s website says is that Board members must be parents themselves and have “a shared parenthood experience”.  Doesn’t say anything about homosexuals one way or the other.]. We’re still strangled by an association that’s straight out of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

But now that it’s received a PG-13, he had this to say:

“I didn’t have to change much. We trimmed some frames more for the sake of trimming frames than anything, but we got the rating without any major changes at all.  I’m a little surprised that we changed their minds, effectively, but I’m happy about it. It proves that if you stick to your guns and you have the creative, and dare I say moral sense, that you’re in the right, that you can get the right thing done.” [GameDaily]

Mmm-hmm, yeah, sure, way to stick to your guns, buddy.  Of course he goes on to say that they’ll be releasing an unrated DVD version that will be totally awesome.

This whole thing is stupid.  Dark Knight had to be PG-13 because it’s about Batman and they have to sell toys.  For any other movie, it doesn’t f-ing matter.  What was the first movie to hit number 1 at the box office after Dark Knight?  Tropic Thunder, rated R.  These jackasses need to learn PG-13 does not equal wider audience, and the DVD thing is even stupider.  People buy DVDs because they really liked the movie, not because they’ve got their fingers crossed that it won’t be shitty this time.  And anyway, people got all excited about Max Payne because the trailer looked cool, but let’s remember, John Moore’s last few movies were The Omen, Flight of the Phoenix, and Behind Enemy Lines.  He’s not suddenly gonna pull something brilliant out of his ass because Mark Wahlberg and a video game are involved.

[Other sources: RopeofSilicon, IGN]