Despite Apatow’s Personal Appeal, MPAA Hits ‘Year One’ With an R

Evidently, Judd Apatow doesn’t have the Spielberg clout when it comes to schmoozing the MPAA on his ratings. Â  Word came down last week that ‘Year One,’ the Apatow-produced, Harold Ramis-directed, caveman comedy starring Jack Black and Michael Cera had acquired an R-rating from the MPAA. Â  This happens more often than you think, but the MPAA generally acquiesces after an appeal or after some minor cuts to the film.

Apatow and Ramis both personally appeared before the MPAA this week to argue against the R-rating.   However, the MPAA stood their ground, and Apatow and Ramis are accepting it.   ‘Year One’ will be released as a R-rated film, the rating being for  “some sexual content and language.”

Now, this is a good thing, and it’s a bad thing if you read between the lines. Â  It’s good that an R-rated comedy is coming out. Â  We’ve had a lot of those over the past couple of years, but filmmakers shouldn’t fear the age-appropriate nature of some of their films. Â  Apatow knows this all too well. Â  His R-rated comedies are making him a ment. Â  So, it’s okay that ‘Year One’ has this rating. Â  It more than likely won’t make any less money than it would have despite.

What isn’t so great about this is the fact that they were clearly trying to get a PG-13 rating attached to the film. Â  That tells me that ‘Year One’ wasn’t a film “going for the R,” it just happened to have enough bad elements to it that made the MPAA think that’s what it deserved.

I guess we’ll see for sure when ‘Year One’ comes out on June 19th.

Source: THR