‘Black Adam’ Takes “A Lot Of Edits” To Avoid R Rating From MPAA

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“Just kill them,” says Dwayne Johnson’s title character at on point in Black Adam, according to his co-star Mo Amer. The comedian said he was taken aback at the a departure from the honorable tough guy persona Johnson has crafted through so many other films. “It just took me a second to recalibrate and be like, ‘Oh wow, this is going to be amazing,’ ” Amer told Collider recently. “He just completely, he obviously has a body of work, but you don’t see The Rock.

You see Black Adam, truly.” That darker, more ruthless tone for the character and the film was the goal, according to the producers, but it created some rough patches with the MPAA.

Producer Beau Flynn told Collider it took “four rounds [with the MPAA], and [the movie] just got the PG-13, I think, maybe four or five weeks ago.” While an R rating is not the kiss of death for a comic book franchise that it was once thought to be — Deadpool and Logan have proven that — eliminating most teens from the theater would seem to betray the massive revenue opportunity that is Dwayne Johnson as (arguably) the most powerful hero in the D.C.

universe. But the commitment to a darker tone was crucial to do justice to the franchise’s roots, said producer Hiram Garcia. “We really wanted to make sure that we honored the character of Black Adam.