James Cameron Avatar

Some of James Cameron’s most iconic works are rated-R and now we’ve learned that ‘Avatar‘ almost was as well. Initially, it seems that the creator was looking to follow in the footsteps of the early ‘Terminator’ films and ‘Aliens’ by giving us content for a more mature audience, but that ended up changing and instead, we’ve got one of the biggest box office openings of all time.

The details came from Robert Rodriguez who is directing the Cameron-produced ‘Alita: Battle Angel.’ While comparing the content in the film to the graphic novel, Rodriguez mentioned that one of the villains named Grewcica was known to eat brains. Jackie Earle Haley is playing the updated version of Grewishka in the feature film and when asked if Haley’s character would also eat brains in the film Rodriguez responded:

“Not in the movie but I do know what you’re talking about. There’s some stuff in the graphic novel that goes further…

Yeah, because it’s a graphic novel they can go really out there and part of what Jim [Cameron] did on Avatar originally, he wrote that to be an R-rated movie. He knew he needed to pull some stuff back so it could be for all audiences, PG-13. And so we certainly keep a good balance I think, especially because with cyborg action you can do a lot more, but I think we keep the right tone. And people who enjoy the graphic novel, we don’t go as far as the graphical stuff but it still really is hard-hitting, and they still collect heads and all that stuff.”

So it looks like while ‘Alita: Battle Angel’ will keep much of the tone from the graphic novels, it will be slightly watered down on the gore factor. Not a big deal as this shouldn’t make or break the quality of a film, but it is interesting to note that the script Cameron originally had put together was meant “to be an R-rated movie.”

We’ll have to see if the upcoming comic book for the franchise ends up showing anything more brutal than the movies.

Looking back, do you feel that there are many moments in ‘Avatar’ which would have lent themselves to easily be darker moments worthy of being Rated-R? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Source: Screen Rant