Terminator Salvation: How Does It Rate?

Moon Bloodgood will have her own “Terminator Salvation” action figure. No word on what it will be wearing.

ComingSoon has details of a panel at WonderCon that featured McG, “Terminator Salvation.” The question about what the movie will be rated came up–is it going to be PG-13 or R?

Now this may not seem like a big deal to those of you who plan to see it no matter what (and bring your 12 year old siblings). But it’s a big deal for a studio, as there still is a perception that an R rating keeps out a huge number of kids. I’m guessing they must have data on this, but it puzzles me, as I don’t know any kid who wants to go see a big summer action movie and can’t get in due to age. Like I said, though, I would think they have some evidence to support this.

Nevertheless, it’s still a question, perhaps one to do with this: a number of toys have already been made to go with the movie, and they’re not made for 19 year olds (well, theoretically). The fear is that for every kid who might not be allowed to see the movie, that’s also a toy sale lost. But on the other hand, McG has stated that there’s a scene in the movie featuring a topless Moon Bloodgood, which usually would fetch an R rating pretty quick. McG weighs in on the issue:

“We never once gave a thought to rating. Do you think Christian would go in and go, ‘I need to tailor my performance to hit a rating.’ He didn’t want to do that, I didn’t want to do that. We would never do that. Now having said that, should the film be PG-13? ‘The Dark Knight’ is PG-13 and I would regard that as made without compromise.”

So he’s saying whichever is fine. But does it matter to those of you who are into the movie and over age 17? If you find out that the movie’s been tagged with a PG-13, does that worry you? Doesn’t bother me, I never look at ratings, but there certainly are people out there who take anything less than an R as a sign of a copout for Disney and McDonald’s Happy Meal toys. Just make the movie good, that’s all I want to hear.