Stallone’s Expendables Censored For UK Cinema Audiences

Back on June 23rd, Box Office Mojo made fanboy wishes come true and confirmed that the MPAA had given Sylverster Stallone’s new action hero mash-up The Expendables an R-rating. The justification for the classification was simple: Rated R for strong action and bloody violence throughout, and for some language.

There was no way of telling at the time if this R-rating would translate into a UK certificate of 15, or of 18. Sometimes it goes one way, sometimes it goes another. I wasn’t too alarmed then when I saw that The Expendables had indeed been given a 15 rating by the BBFC. I didn’t have to look far, however, to see there was something more going on.

The version of the film that will play in UK cinemas has been cut from the version scheduled to run in the US. That version would have recieved an 18 rating here and the distributor, Lions Gate UK, decided that they didn’t want that. They made the simple business decision to alter the film so that it could be played to a younger audience and, therefore, rack up more ticket sales.

What has been removed? What the BBFC are calling a two second shot of  “a hero sadistically twisting a knife into a guard’s neck.” Funny definition of a hero, but okay. The BBFC are very clear that an 18 certificate was available if Lionsgate wanted to release the film uncut.

The choice was simple: lose those two seconds and gain the cash of a whole raft of 15-, 16- and 1- year olds. I can see the sense in this: that’s pretty much who the film is aimed at, isn’t it?

For readers outside of the UK, note that our classification system is not the same as in the US. There, anybody can be admitted to an R-rated movie if accompanied by an adult. Here, if you’re under the age stated by either the 15 or 18 certificate, you simply can’t go in. Teenagers used to make great efforts to sneak into 18 rated films, but that’s cooled down a lot, I’ve been told, now that they can download pirated copies pretty easily at home.

On the upside of the BBFC system, pretty much anything and everything has been passed 18 for viewing by adults, and there’s no real stigma against the 18 certificate the way there is against the NC-17. On the downside, we sometimes see distributors cutting their films in pursuit of a bigger target audience. Spider-Man 2 was the last high profile geek film to be cut, I think, with a headbut trimmed out in pursuit of the child-friendly 12A rating.

No doubt there’s going to be an “uncut” release of The Expendables on Blu-ray just a few months down the line, likely one even more “uncut” than the US theatrical version, and I’m sure any iteration of the film you could hope for will be uploaded to torrent sites well before then too. I hope Lionsgate know what kind of a gamble they’ve taken.