Dark Knight Rises Deleted Scene Would Have Earned Movie an NC-17 Rating

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Dark Knight Rises Deleted Scene Would Have Earned Movie an NC-17 Rating

A scene from Christopher Nolan’s 2012 blockbuster The Dark Knight Rises would have caused the film to be slapped with an NC-17 rating, had it not been deleted. Nolan’s third and final entry in the trilogy remains a divisive one for fans even today.

When Nolan first took over the reins on the highly popular Batman franchise in 2005, it was safe to say that he wasn’t on the radar of most comic book movie fans. At the time, the Batman franchise was still reeling from the indignities of Joel Schumacher’s 1997 dud, Batman & Robin. It was hard to imagine that much could be done to salvage that particular iteration of the Batman, but Nolan succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations. Things were taken to the next level in 2008 when The Dark Knight arrived – a film that many today still consider to be Nolan’s greatest cinematic achievement. A big part of the film’s success was Heath Ledger’s chilling portrayal of the Joker, for which Ledger later earned a posthumous Oscar. The stakes were so high for the franchise’s third and final installment, however, that when The Dark Knight Rises was released, some fans couldn’t quite come to terms with it.

Now, according to a report from IGN, it appears that Gotham’s Deputy Police Commissioner Peter Foley, played by Matthew Modine, almost met a very brutal end. As fans of the film will recall, the character was killed off in a gun battle against Bane’s forces. But as Modine has revealed, the original death scenario for Foley was much different – and much more gruesome. Originally planned to be killed by Talia al Ghul’s Tumbler, the death scene was so brutal that if Nolan had kept it in the film’s final cut, it would have received a dreaded NC-17 rating. As Modine explained:

"After Bane dies and Batman, Chris [Bale] gets stabbed, [Talia] gets in one of those vehicles. She starts to drive away, and I’m shooting at her. And I got run over. All it does is, it just cuts and I’m on the ground, dead. But it was so violent. 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. And 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 NC-17 rating is widely acknowledged as the kiss of death of for films in America, as it allows fewer options for distribution. Many popular films have received an NC-17 rating over the years, but have recut the footage in order to be given an R-rating instead. In the case of The Dark Knight Rises, the film was ultimately given a very workable PG-13 rating, which makes a huge difference in comparison to NC-17. As the second highest grossing film in Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, an NC-17 rating would likely have severely damaged the film’s box-office profits.

For Batman fans, perhaps the original ending that Nolan had planned for Foley would have been far more dramatic. It’s hard to deny that the stunt work alone sounded pretty incredible. Perhaps one day this footage will be released on some sort of director’s cut or anniversary edition of The Dark Knight Rises. Ultimately, however, it’s hard to disagree that Nolan made the right choice in cutting the scene – if only to ensure that more fans were able to see the film.