‘The Dark Knight Rises’ Director Christopher Nolan Cut a 'Sickening' Death Scene
Christopher Nolan's Batman films have their fair share of intense moments, such as Bane's back-breaking fight in The Dark Knight Rises and so much of what Joker does in The Dark Knight. Despite that, they've all been rated PG-13.
A lot of that is down to good editing, as Full Metal Jacket actor Matthew Modine has shared that Nolan initially filmed a much more visually visceral death for his character, Deputy Police Commissioner Peter Foley, which took place near the end of The Dark Knight Rises.
Speaking about the scene on the CinemaBlend ReelBlend podcast, Modine explained: "[Nolan] cut my death scene out of Dark Knight Rises. Because he said it was so violent that it would have gotten an NC-17 rating."
"After Bane dies and Batman... gets stabbed, [Talia al Ghul] gets in one of those vehicles," he continued.
"She starts to drive away, and I'm shooting at her. And I got run over. All it does is, it just cuts, and I'm on the ground, dead.
"But it was so violent. The guy that was doubling me got hit by the car. They put a plexiglass thing on the front of [the car] and he got hit.
"They had ropes to pull him into the air, but he went up and they dropped him from about 15 feet, and the sound of his body hitting the cobblestone street in front of the New York Stock Exchange, it was sickening."
"I remember I looked at Christopher Nolan when we shot it and his face was white," Modine added.
"He was like, 'OK, let's move on. We got that.' But it was like, 'Oh my God, is that guy going to get up? Is he okay?'
"But [Nolan] said that if he would have put it in the movie, it would've got an NC-17 rating because it was so violent."
The Batman franchise is being rebooted again with Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson's The Batman. Filming was put on hold due to COVID-19, but recently picked up again (after being temporarily paused again).
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