Summary
- Many action movie franchises started with an R rating but later shifted to a PG-13 rating for wider audience appeal and box office success.
- Some franchises, like Die Hard and Riddick, returned to their R-rated roots after experimenting with a PG-13 rating, while others stuck with the more censored material.
- Despite mixed reviews, PG-13-rated sequels to R-rated action franchises attracted younger audiences and made more money, proving the appeal of a wider rating.
Many action movie franchises began with an R rating but then changed their tone and content to garner a PG-13 with later installments. The first movies in these series, many of them from the '80s and '90s, incorporated gory violence, foul language, and sexually explicit content, but as the franchises continued to spawn sequels into the 21st century, such R-rated material proved limiting in box office appeal. Despite mixed reviews for the watered-down versions, PG-13-rated sequels to preexisting R-rated action movie franchises indeed managed to attract younger audiences and rake in more money.
Given that a PG-13 rating can mark such a change that it decreases the quality of a franchise, some action series eventually decide to go back to their hyper-violent, R-rated roots. The Die Hard, Terminator, Expendables, Highlander, and Riddick franchises are all examples of action properties that went from R to PG-13 and then back to R. Others that started out with adult-oriented stories and scenes made the change and then stuck with the more censored material for the rest of their runs, which is ironic considering fans likely had to see those initial R-rated action movies to appreciate the later PG-13 sequels anyway.
10 Die Hard
The first Die Hard featured Bruce Willis not only walking on glass and slaying terrorists but also uttering some of John McClane’s greatest quotes like the curse-driven “Yippee-ki-yay motherf*****." The first two sequels expectedly went along with an R-rating, but things changed with 2007’s Live Free or Die Hard, a fourth adventure that found McClane battling global hackers and being chased by fighter jets. Despite the reduced bloodshed and Willis only teasing the f-bombs, the movie was a return to form for the character. The same can’t be said for A Good Day to Die Hard, which failed to win over fans even after being R-rated.
9 Speed
Playing out with a Die Hard-like scenario on a moving bus strapped with a ticking bomb, Speed became the quintessential summer action blockbuster of the 1990s. The fast-paced editing throughout the movie was adorned further with convincing performances from Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, and Dennis Hopper. While the violence wasn’t as gory as other entries on this list, consistent expletive-heavy language and a third-act decapitation meant that Speed was rated R by the MPAA. The relatively inferior sequel Speed 2: Cruise Control experimented with a PG-13 rating but Reeves’s absence and a shift in setting to a cruise ship failed to replicate the adrenaline-fueled tension of its predecessor.
8 RoboCop
Paul Verhoven’s original RoboCop still holds up today with its unabashedly campy violence and genre-defining prosthetics. The scene in which a villainous minion’s skin starts melting with acid is forever etched in the minds of viewers. But the technological satire about a bionic law enforcer in a dystopian Detroit ran out of its R-rated steam by the third part. Not even comic book legend Frank Miller’s involvement in the script could prevent the critical and commercial failure of the PG-13-rated RoboCop 3. The lower rating was retained with the 2014 reboot. Despite mixed reviews, diehard RoboCop fans were already disappointed when the movie's rating was revealed before its release.
7 Riddick
Revolving around a space crew stranded on a planet inhabited by bloodthirsty creatures, the 2000 sci-fi horror Pitch Black featured R-rated violence ranging from bodies being split apart to humans being impaled by blades. The film drew a cult following with Vin Diesel’s outlaw Riddick getting his own solo adventure in the poorly-received The Chronicles of Riddick, which settled for a PG-13 rating with a brief moment of ionate kissing and largely blood-less violence. Riddick fought alien predators again in a third installment in 2013 that brought back the original rating. But the R-rated Riddick only garnered a lukewarm response with its full-frontal nudity and excessive alien and human gore.
6 The Terminator
The later Terminator sequels deviated a lot from the first two movies. While the first one featured a prolonged sex scene, the second movie included not only robot-on-human violence but also the bloodied exoskeleton of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s titular cyborg. Even though it wasn’t as brutal as its predecessors, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines stuck with an R-rating. Juggling timelines and introducing new characters, the next two Terminator movies chartered PG-13 territory with CGI violence. As for the sixth chapter, Terminator: Dark Fate, the movie not only brought back Linda Hamilton’s Terminator-killing Sarah Connor but also the franchise’s original R rating.
5 Alien/Predator
Both the Alien and Predator franchises have established benchmarks in sci-fi horror and experimented with creatively gory prosthetics and increasingly graphic alien anatomies. When the two franchises finally crossed over in Alien vs. Predator, a softer approach to the interspecies violence led to a PG-13 rating. Some green blood-spurting aside, even a chestbuster alien couldn’t replicate the gory grandeur of the first Alien movie. However, the second crossover Alien vs. Predator: Requiem retained an R-rating for more gruesome blood-splattering violence between the titular extraterrestrial races. The graphic action has since been the norm again with Ridley Scott directing numerous Alien prequels and the Predator franchise continuing with spinoffs like Prey.
4 Highlander
Christopher Lambert became an unconventional action icon with the Highlander franchise, which featured him as an immortal 16th-century warrior engaged in intense sword duels with barbaric opponents. Blood-splattered battle sequences and sword fights with decapitated heads serve as recurring tropes, earning all Highlander movies an R-rating, save for the third installment, Highlander: The Final Dimension. The 1994 action movie was still surprisingly edgier than other PG-13 movies of the time with sex scenes that are brief but heavy on nudity and pools of blood that definitely test the limits of a teen-friendly rating. Further sequels continued staging violent duels in the franchise’s R-rated glory.
3 Mad Max
Set in a post-apocalyptic Australian wasteland, Mad Max exposed the titular drifter to shootings, stabbings, and some naked posterior shots in the first two movies. The PG-13 rating of the third installment made sense considering how Max was tasked with leading a group of abandoned teenagers to rebel against an oppressive queen. The change in rating didn’t really affect Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome with Tina Turner playing the tyrannical villain Aunty Entity and the vehicle and stunt choreography being as thrilling as ever. George Miller brought back the R-rated ferocity for 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road, an action drama heavy on violence, nudity, and even a breast milk production unit.
2 Conan
Before The Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenneger broke out in the action genre playing the titular hypermasculine lead in Conan the Barbarian. Drawing from the swords-and-sandals novels by Robert E. Howard, the action fantasy classic heavily relied on violent gladiator duels, multiple stabbings, and some eyebrow-raising sexually charged moments. In what can be seen as a drastic change in tone, the follow-up Conan the Destroyer went all the way down to a PG rating. Mild instances of nudity and sex coupled with outlandish action made the 1984 sequel somewhat campier than its predecessor. The same can be said for the Conan spinoff Red Sonja, released a year later with a PG-13 rating.
1 The Expendables
When Sylvester Stallone united the biggest action stars of Hollywood, The Expendables was bound to get an R-rating. The hyper-violent escapades of the titular team of mercenaries led to moments of gratuitous brutality that leading men like Stallone, Jason Statham, and Jet Li have already dabbled in. This self-indulgent action franchise is clearly marketed at diehard genre fans, but The Expendables 2 even managed to draw some critical acclaim. This changed with The Expendables 3, which experimented with the PG-13 rating to with mixed responses among critics and audiences alike. In what would seem like a rational step, the fourth installment, Expend4bles, decided to stick to its R-rated basics.
