James Gunn Details What Was Cut From His PG-13 Scooby Doo to Get PG Rating

Before he was a household name thanks to the success of Guardians of the Galaxy, filmmaker James Gunn had contributed the screenplay for Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead, and then taken on the writing duties for Scooby-Doo, the live-action/CGI hybrid film from director Raja Gosnell, who would go on to direct a second Scooby movie as well as a pair of movies based on The Smurfs that used similar approaches. But it was that first, Gunn-penned Scooby-Doo movie that took Gosnell (Show Dogs, Yours, Mine & Ours) a PG-13 rating. Gunn confirmed as much earlier today on Twitter, and later followed up with a brief explanation.

Actually, the first cut was apparently briefly rated R, because of a joke that was misinterpreted by the Motion Picture Association of America, the group responsible for rating movies. Once that was cleared up, though there was still apparently some work to do to avoid the PG-13 — which was the rating Gunn had written the movie shooting for.

“The movie was originally meant to be PG-13 & was cut down to PG after like 3 parents were outraged at a test screening in Sacramento. The studio decided to go a more family friendly route,” Gunn explained on Twitter. “Language and jokes and sexual situations were removed, including a kiss between Daphne and Velma. Cleavage was CGI’d over. But, thankfully, the farting remained. I thought at the time the rating change was a mistake. I felt like a lot of teens came out for the first film and didn’t get what they wanted (and didn’t come back for the sequel). But today I don’t know. So many young kids loved those movies, which is pretty cool.”

He added that he doubted any previous cuts of the movie even exist — which makes sense for a movie that’s over a decade old and was rated down because of what Warners would probably consider maintaining the integrity of the Scooby-Doo brand. If they weren’t going to release that movie, basically, why risk having anybody else see it?

While response to the Gosnell Scooby-Doo movies was mixed, Matthew Lillard remained a definitive version of Shaggy ever since, and fans were upset when he was recast for the forthcoming origin movie Scoob.

Of course, Gunn is back at Warner Bros. now, directing The Suicide Squad for DC. THe odds are good that there will be a lot of conversation around that film’s rating, too, since R-rated superhero movies are becoming more and more the norm,and there was pressure on WB and David Ayer to bump the first Suicide Squad movie up to that. The plausibility of that move might depend in part on what the studio earns from next week’s Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn, which is rated R and stars Suicide Squad‘s Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie).