It's been a long and turbulent road writing about Fox's adaptation of the Hit Man video game franchise around here. We broke news back in early October that director Xavier Gens had been bumped from the film with the reins handed over to Nicholas De Toth - the same man Fox brought in to supervise the entirely bloodless reworking of Live Free Or Die Hard - news that Fox promptly denied, insisting that Gens was still the director. Then, yesterday, word came that star Timothy Olyphant had confirmed significant reshoots on the film - including at least a pair of action sequences - with someone other than Gens directing, confirming our earlier report. And today comes word that the final rating from the MPAA has come down on the film, and it is:
"R" rating for, "Strong bloody violence, language, and some sexuality/nudity."
So, at final tally: Gens out, De Toth in, film recut and reshot, still rated R.
** UPDATE **
Thanks to regular reader Mary who points out that the film has been rated 15 in the UK, which means this is a very soft R.
Jesus, you guys are really driving this story into the ground. Considering the fact that the movie's not even out yet, how can any of us say that this additional shooting was a bad thing? Consider Gens' only other feature, Frontieres, has gotten mostly negative reviews from every source I've checked (except here), is it at all possible that maybe he turned in a film that was just not that good?
Perfectly possible, at this stage I'm just following up on an earlier story and don't have any plans to say any more about it until the film is out. The thing that irked me in the first place was the way Fox tried to spin it ... would have been far better if they'd just acknowledged what was going on. Everything we said was factual and we've got solid sources to back it all up and their shoot the messenger approach was bloody annoying ...
Just so you guys know Live Free or Die Hard was never reworked to be bloodless. It was always intended to be PG13. I worked on the film and all the bullet hits had no blood.
By the way, De Toth was Len Wiseman's editor on Underworld:Evolution, his film before Die Hard.
So why there was more F-words in Unrated version than PG-13 rated version?
(The UK extended version has few more F-words than US unrated version, though)
I assume there were plans for an unrated version of DIE HARD 4 - WHOEVER WINS, WE LOSE before a single frame of film was shot, and the F bombs were shot especially for that purpose - sort of the opposite of shooting clean versions of foul-mouthed scenes for eventual TV sales. Either that or the profanities were dubbed in later for the DVD to make it seem more like a real DIE HARD movie.
I'm pretty sure Willis, in some magazine, said that it was going to be rated R. The interview was after the movie was shot and he ended up having to backtrack online (when he was "caught" posting in defense of the movie on Aint It Cool).
Also, the fact that it was shot without blood means shit all, since more and more movies are using CG blood instead of blood packs. Look at a flick like Running Scared, it's a pretty hard R and it has a LOT of CG blood.
I've yet to see Frontiere(s) but just about every source I have checked, except for a couple select people, have said it was a great, if derivative film.