The latest MPA ratings are out. “Street Fighter” has been rated PG-13, while “Forgotten Island” and “Sheep in the Box” have both received PG ratings. “Possible Love” and “Sacrifice” have each been rated R.
Then there’s Brad Bird’s “Ray Gunn,” which has been rated PG for “violence, action, language, some suggestive material and thematic elements.”
To me, this suggests that Bird lost his battle over the film’s final cut with Netflix. If you remember, TheWrap previously reported that Netflix wanted “Ray Gunn” to receive a more family-friendly PG rating, while Bird believed the film should be rated PG-13.
The reason is fairly straightforward: a PG-13 rating would prevent the film from appearing in Netflix’s Kids profile and Kids tab, potentially reducing its reach with younger audiences and families. Given those business incentives, it always seemed unlikely that Netflix would ultimately go along with Bird’s wishes.
If that’s what happened, it’s a real shame.
To get his $150M-plus passion project made—a film he’s been developing since the late 1990s—Brad Bird had to make a deal with the devil, so to speak. That kind of arrangement inevitably comes with concessions.
The reality is that no other studio was willing to finance it. Netflix stepped in and made the film possible. The hope now is that the creative compromises and studio meddling were kept to a minimum.
“Ray Gunn” is set to premiere exclusively on Netflix on December 18, with no theatrical release currently planned. That said, I expect the film to receive a limited theatrical run in late November, primarily to qualify for Oscar consideration.