New SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE poster, Boyle responds to R-Rating

The PG-13 rating for the extremely intense and majorly adult themed blockbuster THE DARK KNIGHT will forever be a thorn in the MPAA side I believe, especially in the near future if they keep flexing their muscles and slapping unfair ratings to uplifting tales like SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE. There is no excuse for it. The MPAA were scared of the backlash giving Batman, a very popular character with kids, an R-Rating and hampering a massive audience for a major Warner Bros. production but when it's a small Fox Searchlight drama, they just don't care... because the backlash won't affect them. It's a disgusting policy and I have great sympathy for director Danny Boyle who told Cinematical about how disappointed he was with how the situation turned out.

No, actually, I was very disappointed. What happens is when you make a film, you sign a contract with the studio or whoever is financing it and there are several stipulations -- like it has to be under two hours or what have you -- and one of the things that's in there is that it has to be a certain certificate (aka rating). And we all agreed that it would be a PG-13 or less. And so I shot the film very deliberately to achieve that certificate, and I'm very disappointed because there's very little actual violence in the film at all. But the response was that the journey of the film was too intense -- and then you think, but that's the job! What's wrong with somebody wanting to watch an intense journey? But yeah, I was very disappointed.

And in response to THE DARK KNIGHT...

Yeah, see and that's what I thought was wonderful about The Dark Knight -- because it was so real. And their argument is that's fantasy. No, actually, the reason the movie is so effective is because it's extraordinarily real and Heath Ledger's performance is extraordinary. Just an extraordinary performance.

Meanwhile, Fox Searchlight have officially released a new poster for the film (you have already seen glimpses of it with the snippets above) which has been given the firm release dates of Nov. 12th (U.S.) and Jan. 23rd (U.K.)... which you can see after the jump...