'The New Mutants' Will Be Hard PG-13 Whatever That Means

We’ve all heard director promising to push the envelope when it comes to their ratings, with “Spawn” director Todd McFarlane recently boasting that his R-rated movie will make “Deadpool” look safe and soft (or something). Now, the filmmaker behind next year’s “The New Mutants” is proclaiming his movie will go right to the limits of PG-13 — whatever that means.

Speaking with Empire, director Josh Boone made it clear that his mutant movie is not like any X-Men flick you’ve seen before. It’s going to be more of a genre flick, one that he hopes will take you on a rollercoaster of feelings.

“This movie is probably the hardest PG-13 ever made,” Boone said. “I mean, we’ve pushed it. The horror is pretty dark, but there’s also an emotional core, too. If I can scare you and make you cry: that’s the goal.”

I’m not sure what a hard PG-13 actually means. It’ll almost have swear words? It’ll almost have blood? To stop being glib for a moment, I suppose it means the atmosphere will be intense, but it’s kind of a weird set of expectations to place on a movie; he’s essentially saying it’ll nearly be R-rated, but not quite. Uh, cool I guess? Frankly, I’m more interested in what Boone has to say about the aesthetic of the not-quite superhero movie.

“There are no costumes,” he said. “That alone makes it different. They can’t be with the other kids at the X-Mansion. They’re too f***ed up. They’ve all killed people, whether intentionally or unintentionally.”

Okay, now that’s intriguing. Talk more about that and less about how rated or not rated this movie will be. “The New Mutants” opens on February 22, 2019. [via ComicBookMovie]