A scene featuring Jennifer Anniston was cut from Horrible Bosses 2. Photo / Supplied
A scene featuring Jennifer Anniston was cut from Horrible Bosses 2. Photo / Supplied
From killing baby Hitler to having sex with someone in a coma, some movie scenes were simply too offensive to be included in the final edits.
The majority of these offensive scenes were dropped due to the Motion Picture Association of America which determines what rating a movie has. But some scenes were scrapped because test audiences found them just a little bit too much.
*Note: An R rating in America means anyone under 17 needs to be accompanied by a parent of guardian. The highest rating is NC-17 which means no one 17 or under can be admitted.
Horrible Bosses 2
Jennifer Aniston reprised her role as a slightly deranged and overtly sexual dentist in the 2014 sequel.
Her character, Dr Julia Harris, liked to sexually harass her assistant Dale (played by Charlie Day) but the dentist took things to a whole new level in Horrible Bosses 2.
"Charlie Day's character is in a coma and I exploit him while he's in a coma," Aniston told Conan O'Brien about the scene which was pulled from the movie.
"It was kind of not even mutual. I'm not gonna say it."
Aniston said the scene was terrifying to shoot because "you usually have someone there to support you (during a sex scene) but he's just laying there in a coma".
Deadpool
You really have to wonder just how offensive a scene was if it was deemed too shocking for Deadpool.
The 2016 movie starring Ryan Reynolds contained plenty of swearing and graphic violence, but according to director Tim Miller, there was one scene that was simply too much.
"There was a bar scene that was too vulgar for even the R-rated Deadpool," he said.
"That bar scene was particularly mean and offensive to a lot of people because T.J. (Miller) and Ryan (Reynolds) got together and wrote a version of the scene that we just said, 'Oh my God, this is too far.' I mean there were so many people offended, it would have really been — we couldn't do it. It was just mean and so I said, 'No. We don't have to do that.'"
Deadpool was nominated for two Golden Globes. Photo / Supplied
Deadpool 2
Writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick came up with some wacky scenes to include after the credits in the 2018 sequel.
But one in particular proved to be too much for test audiences.
"We took out the killing of baby Hitler," Reese told Uproxx.
"We shot it and we put it in front of an audience. He's got the crib and he's standing in the German nursery and he's leaning over the crib to do it and there was kind of this, 'ohhhhh.' And we thought we don't want to leave the crowd on an 'ohhhhh.' So it ended up coming out."
Wernick added, "There's even a draft of that scene where we back it up even more where he's standing over baby Hitler and says, 'God, that is a toughie.'
"He finds a Sharpie and draws a moustache on the baby — a little baby moustache — and says 'Maximum effort!'"
Scream
It's the 1996 movie that is credited with revitalising the horror genre, but Wes Craven's slasher film was originally meant to be much gorier.
The legendary director told Bloody Disgusting that the Motion Picture Association of America initially thought Scream was "virtually obscene" and as a result "almost the entire third act had to be drastically altered".
One of the most troubling scenes, according to the MPAA, was where Billy (played by Skeet Ulrich) and Stu (Matthew Lillard) stabbed each other in the kitchen to hide the fact they were the actual killers.
"(Producer) Bob Weinstein went to them and said … 'This is a comedy,'" Craven recalled. "And though we didn't see it that way really — (though) there were certainly comedic aspects to it — that kind of took the (edge) off of it for them (the MPAA) and they gave us our 'R' with only a single cut.
"I think there was a shot of Stu's hand with blood dripping off the end, and that particular moment … the MPAA didn't like … so we shortened that shot, and that was it."
Drew Barrymore in Scream. Photo / Supplied
Charlie Countryman
The 2013 romantic drama starred Shia LaBeouf and Evan Rachel Wood. The film company wanted it to be rated R but the MPAA said it would be classified NC-17 unless a controversial scene showing a woman receiving oral sex was removed.
The movie company buckled and Evan Rachel Wood took to Twitter to vent her frustration.
"After seeing the new cut of #CharlieCountryman I would like to share my disappointment with the MPAA, who thought it was necessary to censor a woman's sexuality once again," she wrote.
"The scene where the two main characters make 'love' was altered because someone felt that seeing a man give a woman oral sex made people 'uncomfortable' but the scenes in which people are murdered by having their heads blown off remained intact and unaltered.
"This is a symptom of a society that wants to shame women and put them down for enjoying sex, especially when (gasp) the man isn't getting off as well! It's hard for me to believe that had the roles been reversed it still would have been cut."
Evan Rachel Wood at the Charlie Countryman premiere in 2013. Photo / AP
Gangster Squad
Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone all starred in this film about the special police squad that was assembled to take down gangster Mickey Cohen and his gang.
The trailer started airing in cinemas in 2012 and featured a scene where Cohen and his men engaged in a shootout inside a movie theatre.
But Warner Bros. quickly decided to pull the trailer from theatres after the July 20 Aurora shooting in which a gunman killed 12 people during a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Colorado.
The Gangster Squad director also decided to reshoot the scene in question.
Sean Penn as Mickey Cohen and Josh Brolin as Sgt John O'Mara in Gangster Squad. Photo / Supplied
"The Aurora shooting was an unspeakable tragedy, and out of respect for the families of the victims, we felt it necessary to reshoot that sequence, and I'm proud of the fact that we did," director Ruben Fleischer told IndieWire.
"I think that we didn't compromise the film or our intent, and I think the (newly shot) Chinatown sequence is really well done, and that we should all respect the tragedy and not draw associations to our film."
Josh Brolin wholeheartedly agreed with the director's decision to pull the controversial scene.
"The fact that that happened and that exists in the movie, it's just too similar," he said. "So I agreed with the choice. Not everybody agreed, but I totally agreed with the choice."
