10 Films Intended To Be R-Rated That Got Neutered To PG-13

Now that we all know what a gargantuan monster Harvey Weinstein is in real life, stories like this seem positively quaint, but the man was not above pulling some weird-ass marketing stunts to try and make a buck, no matter whose toes he was stepping on.

Tom Hooper's Colin Firth-starring film, The King's Speech, was released in 2010 and wound up winning the Best Picture award at the 2011 Oscars. Chronicling the story of England's Prince Albert learning how to overcome his fear and speak properly in public, the film contained a hilarious sequence in which Firth's character chides himself for not successfully delivering a speech by repeating "f**k" over and over again.

Seeing as the MPAA rules are very strict about how much a film can use the F-word, the film was slapped with an R-rating. But after the film had already been out for months and won several Oscars, Weinstein decided to release a new cut of the film without that sequence, bringing the rating down to a PG-13. He then proceeded to market it as a family film event, in hopes of getting more audiences to come out and see the film after its Oscar success.

All of this was done without the input of Hooper or Firth, both of whom were furious about the unexpected cuts to the film.