Legendary director Ridley Scott recently sat down with Empire to discuss a little movie called Prometheus. It’s his new sci-fi film that has everyone excited. The buzz surrounding it is not only there because it’s a Ridley Scott film, but also because he’s returning to the sci-fi genre and to the beloved universe of the Alien films.
“I always wondered when they did [Aliens] 2, 3 and 4 why they hadn’t touched upon that, instead of evolving into some other fantastic story. They missed the biggest question of them all: who’s the big guy? And where were they going? And with what? Why that cargo? There’s all kinds of questions,” said Scott.
The big question on my mind, and likely on many others, is what the rating will be for the film. Luckily, Empire was wondering the same thing and they asked him about it.
“Right now I don’t know where we are. The question is, do you go for the PG-13, or do you go for what it should be, which is R? Financially it makes quite a difference, or the risk makes quite a difference, and yet you also have to apply the question — if you soften it, will you financially suffer? As opposed to just going for the throat and gambling. Essentially, it’s kinda R. The little bastards will still get in anyway, so what’s the difference? It’s not just about blood, it’s about ideas that are very stressful. I’m not an idiot, but I’ll do everything I can to get the most aggressive film I can.”
From the sounds of it, I’m thinking that he’s leaning towards a hard PG-13. Quite frankly, if the film does release with anything but an R rating, I’ll be disappointed. A sci-fi horror film set in the Alien universe needs to be restricted. You can only get away with so much when your film is rated PG-13 and without that R, Scott is going to be very limited in terms of what he can show.
Judging by the trailers that we’ve seen, I was fully expecting a hard R film that is bloody, gory, dark and frightening. Hopefully, that’s what we’ll get. I’m tired of all the PG-13 horror films. They rarely turn out to be effective and if Scott sells out and slaps a PG-13 on this, he’s going to upset a lot of fans.
Prometheus stars Guy Pearce, Patrick Wilson, Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron and Idris Elba and will hit theaters June 8, 2012.
