Elton John on ‘Rocketman’ Getting an R Rating
The Elton John film Rocketman, unlike the crazy-successful Bohemian Rhapsody, is rated “R,” and it’s a rating Sir Elton fought for.
John penned an op-ed that ran in The Guardian over the weekend that touched on the film’s rating, and the music icon was forthright with why he didn’t back down when it came to the rating.
“Some studios wanted to tone down the sex and drugs so the film would get a PG-13 rating. But I just haven’t led a PG-13 rated life,” wrote John. “I didn’t want a film packed with drugs and sex, but equally, everyone knows I had quite a lot of both during the 70s and 80s, so there didn’t seem to be much point in making a movie that implied that after every gig, I’d quietly gone back to my hotel room with only a glass of warm milk and the Gideon’s Bible for company.”
John also touched on how studios had a problem with some of the fantasy parts of Rocketman.
“And some studios wanted us to lose the fantasy element and make a more straightforward biopic, but that was missing the point,” wrote John. “Like I said, I lived in my own head a lot as a kid. And when my career took off, it took off in such a way that it almost didn’t seem real to me. I wasn’t an overnight success by any means…but when it happened, it went off like a missile: there’s a moment in Rocketman when I’m playing onstage in the Troubadour club in LA and everything in the room starts levitating, me included, and honestly, that’s what it felt like.”
Rocketman opens in U.S. theaters this Friday (May 31)
Erica Banas is rock/classic rock news blogger that loves the smell of old vinyl in the morning.