10 Risky Film Moments Directors Thought They'd Lose You

Without question the most talked about scene in Ridley Scott's Prometheus is the famously gnarly "C-section" sequence, where Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) uses an auto-surgery machine to perform a C-section on herself and remove the alien creature ready to burst out of her abdomen.

It's an extremely traumatic scene, and according to Scott single-handedly resulted in the film going from a PG-13 rating to R, which likely explains why Fox expressed their misgivings about the sequence and asked Scott to drop it.

He said, "They didn't even want the scene... It wasn't about just cutting it down, they didn't want the scene."

And there's no denying that placing such a visceral scene - effectively an alien abortion - in the middle of even a sci-fi horror movie was a risk, but Scott thankfully had the backing of Fox CEO Tom Rothman, who agreed to keep the scene largely due to Rapace's enormous physical commitment to it.

In the end it ultimately wasn't too squeamish of an inclusion for Alien fans, and despite some misgivings about the plot and character logic, Prometheus was a solid critical and commercial success.