Summary

• Wes Anderson’s movie “Asteroid City” featured a fully nude scene with Scarlett Johansson, which initially led to an R rating from the MPAA.
• Despite dealing with mature themes, Anderson’s films often balance heavy subject matter with quirky humor and eccentric characters, which is also the case with “Asteroid City.”

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• Anderson successfully appealed the R rating to obtain a PG-13 rating, marking a “historical moment” in cinema and avoiding potential box office disaster due to limited audience access.

Asteroid City managed to get away with a PG-13 despite a fully nude scene involving Scarlett Johansson, which would usually warrant an R rating from the MPAA. Wes Anderson’s movies deal with mature themes, but they’re also playful with a naive, childlike quality to them. The heavy subject matter is often offset by quirky humor and eccentric characters, and that’s no different with Asteroid City. In the 2023 movie, Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman) is grieving his wife’s death and doesn’t know how to cope with raising his children alone.

The 2023 movie was a modest success, as Asteroid City has 74% on Rotten Tomatoes and made $47 million worldwide. Nevertheless, while Asteroid City isn’t considered the greatest Wes Anderson movie, it does mark a few firsts for the celebrated filmmaker despite it being his 11th release. The movie is Anderson’s first collaboration with Tom Hanks, who seamlessly fits into Anderson’s very specific visual style, and it also marks the first time Anderson has ever featured nudity in any of his films. However, that aspect of the film led to controversy, which is extremely uncharacteristic of Anderson’s work.

Asteroid City Was Originally Rated R For Scarlett Johansson’s Nudity

Augie begins something of a brief romantic relationship with Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johansson) in Asteroid City, a famous but weary movie star with issues of her own. In one scene in the film, Midge gets totally naked in front of Augie, as the actor is rehearsing a scene in a movie that she’s starring in. Even when Midge drops her towel, the nudity is only in the reflection of a mirror, and it’s a blink-and-you-‘ll-miss-it shot. Nevertheless, the MPAA originally branded Asteroid City with an R rating due to the scene.

An R rating isn’t out of the ordinary for Anderson even despite his movies commonly being described as live-action cartoons. Bottle Rocket, The Darjeeling Limited, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and The French Connection are all R-rated, but that’s mostly due to the violence and language in the movies. The nude scene in Asteroid City is different from those examples, as while the nudity is full frontal, it’s anything but graphic, and the moment certainly wasn’t intended to be erotic or even all that romantic. Ironically, Johansson was totally relaxed filming the scene (via The Guardian).

How Wes Anderson Got Asteroid City’s PG-13 Rating

Given how paramount the PG-13 rating is to the success of so many films, Wes Anderson appealed the MPAA’s decision. The filmmaker surprisingly won the appeal, which is completely unprecedented and is being called a “historical moment” for cinema (via The Independent). This isn’t the first time an appeal of an MPAA decision has won, and most of the appeals involve sexually explicit content (via USC Spotlight). However, Asteroid City does mark the first ever time a movie has won an appeal against the MPAA over graphic content and was then lowered from an R to a PG-13.

If Anderson didn’t appeal the R rating, it could have been disastrous for Asteroid City at the box office. The movie has a huge A-list cast, is wildly entertaining, and appeals to a huge age range. However, an R rating would have severely limited the number of people who could pay to see the movie, and Asteroid City consequently would have had a much lower gross. What’s more, the movie’s overall box office total wasn’t even that high, as it made $46 million worldwide, hency why an R rating could have led to yet another 2023 box office bomb.