When director Jeff Wadlow first discussed ‘Fantasy Island’ with Blumhouse he was firm on wanting the film to have an R-rating. Now that the movie is out, we know that it ended up clocking in with a PG-13 one instead, as so many horror movies do these days. With the directing being so set on the rating, you’ll be surprised to know that he doesn’t care in the slightest that cuts were done to lower it! In fact, Wadlow feels that the story they ended up telling was easily doable with a PG-13 due to the amazing cast he worked with.
In an interview with Cinemablend, Wadlow shared that:
“Upfront I said, ‘Jason Blum, the movie has to be rated R.’ And it’s not. That’s great example of having to change and kind of go with the flow. I felt that it had to be R, and I thought I shot an R movie, but then when we showed it to an audience we were like, ‘Well, it’s not really that R.’ And just a couple of trims and it was a PG-13.”
It appears that these changes didn’t change the tone of the film, and Wadlow ended up being fine with the scenes being cut. For those who do want a darker version of the film, it seems that you’ll be in luck:
“There’ll be a slightly edgier cut that will be available later on. But the movie works, it’s much more about character and emotion, and it doesn’t matter if a movie’s PG-13 or R – those things come through when you have great actors like we have in our film.”
It isn’t clear if this will be an Unrated or Director’s Cut, but Wadlow doesn’t come across as someone who minded having to change things up to get the rating which they received.
Are you planning on checking out the R-rated version of ‘Fantasy Island’ when it was released? If you saw the movie, did you feel that it needed to be “edgier” to work? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
You can currently visit ‘Fantasy Island’ at your local theater!
Source: Cinemablend
