After a viral tweet from the Film Facts account suggested that there were PG, PG-13, R and NC-17 cuts of the beloved family film Mrs. Doubtfire, director Chris Columbus has confirmed that an R-rated edit of the movie exists.
Columbus clarified that there was never an NC-17 version of the film (we can only imagine what that might look like), but he said that there were three cuts of the movie — which was eventually released in theaters in 1993 with a PG-13 rating — due to star Robin Williams’s frequent improvisation.
Williams would often do “anywhere between 15 to 22 takes” of a scene as the struggling actor who disguised himself as a British female housekeeper to secretly spend time with his children after losing custody in a divorce. “He would sometimes go into territory that wouldn’t be appropriate for a PG-13 movie, but certainly appropriate and hilariously funny for an R-rated film,” Columbus said.
But before you get too excited about the possibility of a naughtier Mrs. Doubtfire, Columbus also noted that he has no plans to release the R-rated cut. “I’m in a good place with Mrs. Doubtfire, so there’s really no reason to do the definitive cut. The definitive cut of Mrs. Doubtfire is out in the world right now.”
“I would be open to maybe doing a documentary about the making of the film and enabling people to see certain scenes re-edited in an R-rated version,” he continued. “I think that would be the best approach.”
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