Will this be Nolan's first "R" rated film since Insomnia?
Will this be Nolan's first "R" rated film since Insomnia?
shareMost don't think so. Most think Dunkirk will be PG-13.
- All of Nolan's recent movies have been PG-13
- PG-13 has better potential to earn back the huge amount spent to make the film (because in North America and Europe, movies make the large majority of their profits via TV)
- Warner Bros. said it would be a summer movie back in December 2015, before casting.
- Has lots of young actors, including the 19 year old lead Fionn Whitehead and Harry Styles who has a lot of over-20 fans but also has newer fans who are younger. Nolan/Warner knew, before casting, that the cast would be led by the young actors.
- The Dunkirk evacuation is a story close to the hearts of Brits. I think the movie will focus on hope and survival.
- Dunkirk is not face-to-face close-up ground battle. This is a large scale widescreen kind of air to sea/ground battle.
I know this ratings thing has been an irritatingly too oft repeated issue, but re your reply there, Dormouse, what has having young leads got to do with the rating?
- Dunkirk is not face-to-face close-up ground battle. This is a large scale widescreen kind of air to sea/ground battle.
And re that, I also tend to think that the film will seek to maximise it's audience with the more gory end of things implied rather than shown in the sickening detail that some seem to want for the sake of it. But I am maybe not quite as seemingly certain as you are that the film will end up as PG13. And although the beaches are about the men being bombed and strafed from the air, I am with others who will also, I think, be disappointed if there's nothing included about the fighting at the perimeters to hold the Germans back. I know there didn't seem to be anything actually filmed at Dunkerque about that or about the likes of the Le Paradis or Wormhoudt massacres, but I'd be surprised if they're not part of the story at all. share
I think having lots of young actors will do more to attract young people to a war movie than the older actors (except for maybe Hardy & Cillian). There are lots of young actors in the full cast list. Making it an R movie would lose the younger audience at the box office and would also mean a lot of editing to be on broadcast TV.
Re actions outside of Dunkirk - I am just going by what we saw during pre-production and production. I didn't see any photos of German ground vehicles (though someone else thought they saw some). If they filmed in France outside of the town of Dunkerque, then they evaded the press and public when they did so. There was one non-reporter photo of Allied soldiers walking along a road and the photographer claimed Hardy and Styles were there. Seems highly unlikely that both were there since they supposedly had no scenes together and Hardy described his own participation as being "in his own play", so the photographer must have been mistaken about one or both (IMO mistaken about Harry but Hardy may be in that scene). We don't know what they filmed in the Warner studio. The outdoor set at Universal seemed to be using boats on the lake. Just my opinion, based on that, that we are not going to see the massacres outside Dunkerque. We may hear about them via Branagh/D'Arcy, or by word of mouth from soldiers arriving in Dunkerque. I think the point of view of the movie will only be what was seen/known by the soldiers in Dunkerque, the people on the boats/ships, and the Allied pilots.