Yes
No
Not from a financial standpoint, which is what the studios ultimately care about.Originally Posted by Merlin1958
I disagree. "R" is the new "PG-13".
Kids under 18 interested in buying a ticket wouldn't be able to without a guardian, directly cutting into the number of ticket sales.
There's no way the studio will exacerbate the risk of producing this relatively unknown series by eliminating a substantial portion of its intended audience.
I agree that they will shoot for PG-13. Honestly the sex is very limited and the violence is largely gun violence not gore and the language is not that bad. It would be easy to trim what is there to a hard PG-13. A fantasy adventure needs to allow a younger audience or it will die.
Agree to disagree. Parents, ain't what they used to be these days. JMHONot from a financial standpoint, which is what the studios ultimately care about.I disagree. "R" is the new "PG-13".
Kids under 18 interested in buying a ticket wouldn't be able to without a guardian, directly cutting into the number of ticket sales.
There's no way the studio will exacerbate the risk of producing this relatively unknown series by eliminating a substantial portion of its intended audience.
28 in 23 (?)!!!!
63 in '23!!!!!!!!!!
My Collection: https://www.thedarktower.org/palaver...ion-Merlin1958
The Houston Astros cheated Major League Baseball from 2017-18!!!! Is that how we teach our kids to play the game now?????
I think they might actually be able to get away with PG-13. I was reading up on the MPAA guidelines today and these are my thoughts on how TDT could fall into them...
Violence: There's a good amount of violence in the stories, but the MPAA guidelines seem to focus on it being "both intense and persistent" to push the film to R. There's definitely a lot of violence, but I don't think it's really intense and persistent. A study has shown there's actually MORE gun violence in PG-13 films than R films.
Language: It seems that to get an R rating the film needs to include multiple occurrences of "harsher sexually-derived expletives". It'd be pretty easy to get around this using mid-world slang and the like.
Substance abuse: Restricted to PG-13 and above. Okay here.
Nudity: "Nudity that is sexually oriented will generally require an R rating." I don't think the sexual scenes require nudity given some good directing/editing/costuming.
Sexual content: "The MPAA does not have any explicit criteria for sexual content other than excluding sex scenes from G rated films." Sounds like we're okay including Susannah fucking the daemon
That being said, I assume ratings are mostly arbitrary and none of the rules really matter.
Wanted:
Michael Whelan & DT Original Art
^ Exactly
I think the big difference between R and PG-13 from a financial standpoint is that for R kids would need their parents to go with them or buy tickets. Even if the parents would be completely okay with their child seeing the movie, the extra effort of requiring the parent to be there or buy tickets probably impacts sales. I have no evidence to support that hypothesis though
I found some evidence!
https://www.yahoo.com/movies/s/pg-13...193558744.htmlThe box office bears that out. Movies rated R returned about $42 million at the box office on average last year, while the average haul of PG ($82 million) and PG-13 movies ($79 million) was roughly double that.
Wanted:
Michael Whelan & DT Original Art
It is no secret that PG-13 is the sweet spot for a film...especially something fantasy based such as this series.
It will be 1,000,000 percent rated PG-13 for all those reasons.Not from a financial standpoint, which is what the studios ultimately care about.I disagree. "R" is the new "PG-13".
Kids under 18 interested in buying a ticket wouldn't be able to without a guardian, directly cutting into the number of ticket sales.
There's no way the studio will exacerbate the risk of producing this relatively unknown series by eliminating a substantial portion of its intended audience.
Especially with the TV crossover.
DT needs to be R to be done properly. Stuff like the Tull shootout would be a joke if it was PG-13. As would 'Drawing of the Three' given how much it deals with drug use and racism.
Something like DT doesn't need a huge budget and if they're smart the producers will know this won't be the next 'Lord of the Rings' regardless of how teen-friendly they make it.
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Unfortunately if it doesn't do well there will be no sequels. They can absolutely make the Gunslinger PG-13...there is lots of violence but it doesn't have to be gore. The last 3 major zombie films have been PG-13 and they didn't cut down much on zombie violence. I am not sure how graphic you feel it needs to be. It can be done well and not be Kill Bill. I am not sure why racism would need to be R. If they decide to make it R (which I doubt they will) they will have killed the chance of the series making it.
As a fan, I completely agree.
But the reality of the marketplace is it needs to be PG-13 not just for the US marketplace, but as something that appeals to a worldwide market.
I don't think WE see it as the next LOTR, but I think the studio sees this as a major franchise and it has to be accessible to the widest audience. I mean, Hunger Games was pretty brutal and it did fine at PG-13, so I don't think it's a big issue.
The shootout at Tull will be tricky to maneuver in PG-13. It's so visceral and lewd with Roland putting bullets into the heads of women and children at point blank range.
Also, I don't know how favorably the execs will look on Roland shooting a raving lunatic of a zealot in the head 10 times after blowing away the cross. The PC crowd will go nuts lol.
Well if you're referring to stuff like World War Z, I heard that film was relatively bloodless and watered-down compared to say Romero's films or The Walking Dead. I don't think DT needs to be blood and guts but I do think the gun violence shouldn't be bloodless either in Tull or the shootout in Drawing of the Three which culminates in someone getting eaten by a lobster monster.
As for racism, the constant use of the n-word would probably not fare well with the MPAA.
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Or Eddie shooting people stark naked with his dick in his hand.
You made me think too, if it WAS Elba, and they keep the Tull scene more or less like that, that creates a whole new level of racial dynamic.
But, you know, Hunger Games had similar scenes, or even Hobbit (which I think got bumped to an R DVD). It IS going to get watered down anyway. (Again, this is why HBO was always the best choice)
I agree. I can't see Andolini getting his hand blown apart, face ripped apart, and then devoured alive in PG-13 without a long cut away or an unbelievable lack of blood. Ditto for Mort's controlled suicide.
PG-13 does basically mean "less if no blood". The increased violence in PG-13 films nowadays comes at the cost of less reality...less gravitas to said violence (i.e. it is more video-game like in it's subdued nature).
Then, there's Detta with a PG-13 mouth. Excuse me if I chortle at the thought.
Funny you should mention HG. There are a few scenes in the book which were represented in the first film that were certainly more vicious in text form.
Maybe they will push it BUT having an R movie will likely mean a low return and thusly an end to the series. This is a lengthy project involving 3 or more movies and a proposed series. It needs to make money...and not a little money...a lot of money. The studio absolutely will expect a LOTR, hopefully with the awards that go with it. They will not devote the large amounts of money needed to a project that is kinda bringing in a bit of money. And the large investment money wise was exactly what has kept this from being made so many time before. So I would say beyond them wanting it to be PG-13 I think it needs to be to get the crowd it needs. Everyone is assuming that it needs to graphically display every detail of the book...good luck with that. The amount that will be trimmed and manipulated (beyond the potential race of the main character) is broad and large. Who knows if the battle in Tull even makes it. If I was a writer/director and was combining 7 books to 3 movies and a TV season I would first look at combining the Gunslinger and TDot3 and honestly Tull would probably get dropped. Why? Because it offers little character development and what character development that it does bring King spends the rest of the series trying to make us forget. Hell he changed it in the rewrite to make Roland seem a bit more likable. So, yeah there are parts that might be well done graphically but not all of them "need" to get done that way or will make it into the film. And those expecting full frontal nudity from Eddie are likely never going to see that.
If it had been committed to a TV show on a channel like HBO then I think (like GOT) that they could afford to be as adult as they like but that is not the reality we have.
All that matters is that the studio makes a profit. The film Krampus made only 60 million dollars but that film cost 15 million to make so it was a huge success in the studio's eyes.
Something like DT doesn't need a big budget. A film like District 9 had a budget of 30 million. The Gunslinger could probably be made on half that budget given that there's only a handful of characters and settings. Likewise the second film probably doesn't need a big budget either. The series gets more elaborate as it goes on but by then the studios should have a good idea of how much money to spend.
A hound will die for you, but never lie to you. And he'll look you straight in the face.
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On a superficial level, I hope Tull makes it to the final cut because it is the only time we are able to see Roland at the apex of his considerable gun slinging abilities, i.e the only fight where he has the full use of both his hands.
However, dropping Tull completely might present a pacing problem. If dropped, there will not be an action set piece until well into the film, possibly the trudge through Slow Mutant territory with Jake. The temptation to have as many set pieces as possible in this - a franchise starter - will be too great. The need to have something between the beginning of the film and the mutant segment to break the monotony won't be overlooked.
How do we know "The Gunslinger" (or whichever parts of it survive the journey to live-action adaptation) won't be rendered down into an extended flashback entirely in Roland's mind?
Good point.
Going off this topic, if they don't get to DOTT until the second movie then that means Eddie and Susan aren't introduced at all? So the whole first movie would be Roland, MiB, and Jake - who dies.
Yeah, I don't see big profits in that movie - so there's going to be some condensing going on.
Upon reflection, it seems to me that "The Dark Tower" is perfect if we're taking film producers hedging their bets into the equation.
The first book has very little in the way of costly special-effects/location filming requirements. The second movie ramps up the required budget, and so forth, and so on (except for "Wizard and Glass", which could easily be filmed practically anywhere that isn't arctic or tropical).
Having "The Gunslinger", at the least, be an R-rated entry to test the waters doesn't sound so outrageous.
Possible (and I stress that word) script spoilers below.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDarkTowe...the_desertand/
May this just be childish sleep-talk.
Probably fake. It sounds like something a fan would make up.
A hound will die for you, but never lie to you. And he'll look you straight in the face.
My Collection
Elevating Jake's timeline roughly forty years into the future does sound like something a film studio would do.Probably fake. It sounds like something a fan would make up.
Would this mean that Eddie comes from the future future?
While it might piss people off by changing the very beginning it might be really interesting to start off with Jake and follow him through death and entry into the gunslingers world. Because you are introduced to the world through him it would also make his death have more of an impact because people would consider him a key character.
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