When most people think of DC animated movies, they don’t always think about them being rated R. That isn’t to say that they can’t be; there have been several animated adaptations of iconic DC Comics to get that R-rating, including Batman: The Killing Joke, Injustice and more. Still, when such a film gets that more mature rating, it’s always a little bit of a surprise and it turns out that when it comes to Batman: Knightfall, that surprise extends to its creators. While the film takes on one of the darkest and most iconic of Batman stories, it turns out it was the studio that encouraged creators to lean into the violence of the story.
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Speaking with ComicBook at San Diego Comic-Con, supervising producer Rick Morales, who notably worked on the Mortal Kombatanimated film, revealed that he initially thought they would have to work within PG-13 parameters, but the studio quickly gave them the go ahead to go further.
“I mean, I did the Mortal Kombat animated film so I think that’s in my DNA of things to do,” he said about the violence level in the film. “However, I will say that when we first started it, I’m like, okay, it’s a Batman film, so it needs to be PG-13. I need to sort of work within those parameters. And we did our first set of storyboards based on that.”
He continues, “And you know, we show it to the executives and they were like, ‘oh, you know, we could show a little bit more.’ And I was like, really? So, interestingly it’s usually me trying to push this stuff and make it as violent and crazy, like a little bit more.”
Batman: KnightfallAbsolutely Needs to Be R-Rated (And It Sounds Like DC Got it Right)
While it is understandable that one might think a Batman story needs to be PG-13 — after all, Batman is a wildly popular character for fans of all ages — Batman: Knightfall is one story that absolutely needs to push the envelope. In comics, the iconic story is one of the defining moments for the hero, in which Bane was introduced, Batman was defeated, and Jean-Paul Valley, aka Azrael, was unleashed on Gotham City in his absence. It’s a story with some violent, dark turns even on the pages of the comics and bringing that down to a PG-13 level might not fundamentally change anything, but it wouldn’t tell the full scope of just how serious this chapter of Batman really is. It’s something that it sounds like the studio really understood, which in turn allowed the creators to fully lean in and tell Knightfall exactly as it needs to be told. Michael Mando, who voices Bane, revealed one scene involving characters burning in a car that was particularly notable and producer Jim Krieg doubled down.
“Cut back to it! Just in case you didn’t know that they’re burning to death, here they are,” Krieg said of the scene.
Even without full context, that scene alone sounds very intense, but it’s very much par for the course for Batman: Knightfall and it is exciting that we’re finally getting a proper adaptation. It’s something that fans of the story and comics have been waiting on for years and knowing that the creators were encouraged to give the story it’s dark due, is very exciting and fans won’t have too much longer to wait to see exactly how it plays out Batman: Knightfall is a three part film with Batman: Knightfall Part 1: Knightfall releasing digitally on August 25 followed by a 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD release on September 8th while Part 2 is set to arrive later this year and Part 3 in early 2027.
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