What is with Lionsgate? If the scoop reported by El Guapo over at Latino Review is true, the studio is trying to get Punisher War Zone cut down to a PG-13 rating. Coming on the heels of the dumping of Midnight Meat Train into dollar theater, the Dane Cook poster kerfuffle about My Best Friend’s Girl and some other behind-the-scenes shit I am not at liberty to print, Lionsgate is looking more and more like a company deeply in crisis. Part of this is based on regime changes, but Lionsgate is really giving off the vibe of a studio that hates its own product.
I don’t even know how War Zone would be cut to a PG-13 – the red band trailer shows that this movie was filmed with maximum blood and guts; a PG-13 edit would play like a shitty TV edit. I don’t have a ton of faith in this movie, but at the very least I expect to be entertained by copious amounts of gore and hilarious violence. If the movie doesn’t have that, what’s even the point?
There have been a lot of weird rumors surrounding this project – no matter what denials may come, it’s obvious there’s trouble here – and I’m jonesing for the full scoop to one day be revealed. In the meantime, I’d really like to see Frank Castle put a chair leg in a guy’s eye in a major motion picture.