One ‘Dark Knight Rises’ Death Scene Was So Violent It Was Cut to Prevent NC-17 Rating
Hollywood has embraced the R-rated comic book tentpole thanks to the success of “Logan” and the “Deadpool” franchise, but that doesn’t mean an NC-17 comic book movie is the next step. According to Matthew Modine, Christopher Nolan had to remove one of the more violent death scenes in “The Dark Knight Rises” in order to prevent the film from reaching an NC-17 rating. The death scene in question was for Modine’s character Peter Foley, second-in-command to Commissioner Gordon and a thorn in Batman’s side throughout the movie.
As Modine revealed on a recent episode of the “ReelBlend” podcast (via NME), Nolan originally scripted and shot his character’s death in a scene where Peter Foley is run over by a vehicle Marion Cotillard’s Talia al Ghul is driving following the death of Bane (Tom Hardy). Modine says Nolan cut the scene because “it was so violent that it would have gotten an NC-17 rating.”
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“All it does is, it just cuts, and I’m on the ground, dead. But it was so violent,” Modine added. “The guy that was doubling me got hit by the car. They put a plexiglass thing on the front of [the car] and he got hit. They had ropes to pull him into the air, but he went up and they dropped him from about 15 feet, and the sound of his body hitting the cobblestone street in front of the New York Stock Exchange, it was sickening.”
Modine continued, “I remember I looked at Christopher Nolan when we shot it and his face was white. He was like, ‘Ok, let’s move on. We got that.’ But it was like, ‘Oh my God, is that guy going to get up? Is he okay?’ But [Nolan] said that if he would have put it in the movie, it would’ve got an NC-17 rating because it was so violent.”
The scene was removed and Modine’s death scene was changed to Peter Foley getting gunned down during the battle between Bane’s followers and the Gotham City Police Department. Like of all Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, “The Dark Knight Rises” was released by Warner Bros. with a PG-13 rating.
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