“Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance” is going to have a lot of death, a lot of violence, and a lot of swearing. So how did directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor manage to keep the rating a friendly PG-13? Because, fortunately, their titular antihero uses fire to kill people.
“We figured out all the tricks. You can kill a lot of people by burning them up and turning them into ash. That’s what you can do,” Neveldine explained. Taylor added, “Fire is your friend for the MPAA.”
In all actuality, the directing duo say the movie is more of a PG-16, but fans looking for harder action won’t be disappointed in the upcoming “Ghost Rider” sequel.
“We knew going in that it was going to be PG-13, we just pushed the envelope as far as we could. We thought we’d get more pushback from the MPAA; we didn’t,” Neveldine said. “There’s f-bombs in the movie, there’s swear words. We have a giant body count.”
The first “Ghost Rider” was also rated PG-13 for “horror violence and disturbing images,” so it’s not much of a surprise that “Spirit of Vengeance” follows the same route. The directors just want their fans to know that the action is still going to be upped in this new movie, even if the rating stayed the same.
“Bullets can be flying, tons and tons of rounds of bullets,” Taylor said. “It’s just if you can eliminate some of the blood, you can go a lot further with it.”