The Dark Knight Rises Originally Had An NC-17 Worthy Death Scene

September 23, 2020

Did you know Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises originally had a death scene so gratuitous that it had to be cut in order to prevent the film from receiving an NC-17 rating? Well, according to Matthew Modine, who starred in the film as Deputy Commissioner Peter “Hot Head” Foley, that’s not just hyperbole, it’s true. The actor revealed as much during an interview on CinemaBlend’s ReelBlend podcast where he revealed how Foley’s death was much more gratuitous in the original cut. Check out a video of the stunt below!

“It was so violent that it would have gotten an NC-17 rating,” Modine said. “All it does is, it just cuts, and I’m on the ground, dead. But it was so violent… The guy that was doubling me got hit by the car. They put a plexiglass thing on the front of [the car] and he got hit. They had ropes to pull him into the air, but he went up and they dropped him from about 15 feet, and the sound of his body hitting the cobblestone street in front of the New York Stock Exchange, it was sickening.”

Modine continued: “I remember I looked at Christopher Nolan when we shot it and his face was white. He was like, ‘Ok, let’s move on. We got that.’ But it was like, ‘Oh my God, is that guy going to get up? Is he okay?’ But [Nolan] said that if he would have put it in the movie, it would’ve got an NC-17 rating because it was so violent.”

As it stands, Foley gets killed off screen per Miranda Tate’s orders in a relatively harmless, though still impactful way. Though, admittedly, the original death scene might have, ahem, landed harder from an emotional standpoint.