Blumhouse Productions’ Fantasy Island landed in theaters this past weekend and, while it might not have been a major hit, director Jeff Wadlow recently revealed that his original intention was to lean into an R rating, with the final PG-13 film potentially being what led to the film’s undoing. While the filmmaker might not have cited the shift in tone as a reason for disappointment with the film, it leaves audiences to speculate if the film could have been more compelling had it leaned into the more gruesome potential of its premise. The filmmaker also teased that a slightly more intense cut could land on home video.

“Upfront I said, ‘Jason Blum, the movie has to be rated R,'” Wadlow shared with CinemaBlend. “And it’s not. That’s a great example of having to change and kind of go with the flow. I felt that it had to be R, and I thought I shot an R movie, but then when we showed it to an audience we were like, ‘Well, it’s not really that R.’ And just a couple of trims and it was a PG-13.”

“There’ll be a slightly edgier cut that will be available later on,” the filmmaker pointed out. “But the movie works, it’s much more about character and emotion, and it doesn’t matter if a movie’s PG-13 or R – those things come through when you have great actors like we have in our film.”

What do you think? Let us know and don’t forget to subscribe to The Nerds Take 2 YouTube channel!