Black Adam's Age Rating and Parents' Guide Explored

Black Adam is here to save the DCEU, despite early ratings causing controversy, but before you take your little ones to see The Rock in action, we confirm the entry’s age rating and discuss the parents’ guide outlining any inappropriate content for kids.

The fact that Black Adam is currently sitting with a 54% score on Rotten Tomatoes is resurfacing the old debate on being your own critic, but no doubt a lot of its praise pulls from the post-credits scene and how it propels the DCEU forward. 

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, Black Adam is based on the DC Comics character of the same name about the anti-hero who reigns havoc on modern times after being imprisoned for five thousand years and only the Justice Society of America can stop him. The feature stars Dwayne Johnson, Aldis Hodge, Noah Centineo, Sarah Shahi, Marwan Kenzari, Quintessa Swindell, Bodhi Sabongui, and Pierce Brosnan.

• MORE: Where to Watch Black Adam – Is it Streaming on HBO Max?

Black Adam Age Rating

Black Adam has officially been rated a PG-13 in the United States, for sequences of strong violence, intense action, and some language.

British soil, on the other hand, has issued a 12A rating, allowing kids 12 years and older to attend.

IMDB elaborates on this rating by outlining the “highly-stylized action violence” that depicts primarily fantastical violence, however, there are brief amounts of blood shown in some scenes. 

Black Adam Parents’ Guide

In summary, parents should know that Black Adam contains a prominent supervillain, the aforementioned strong violence, a revenge theme, constant action with high stakes, images of destroyed populated areas, and the frequent use of supernatural powers.

Expanding on the violence, these interactions include the use of guns, knives, and other pointed weapons. Character deaths include splitting one villain in half, a man melting, attempted decapitation, attempted shooting of a child, a man being stabbed, a severed arm, and impaling. It is important to note that these scenes are briefly shown with no gore involved.

Parent Previews stated the script contained a total of six profanities, including references to a deity, crude terms, the use of scatological curses, and mild bad language. 

• MORE: Black Adam Will See the Return of Henry Cavill’s Superman Says DC Fans

Black Adam was Originally Rated R

During an interview with Collider, Black Adam producers Beau Flynn and Hiram Garcia revealed the movie was originally rated R by MPAA and explained why they originally went down this route:

“We really wanted to make sure that we honored the character of Black Adam. One of the things he’s known for is his aggression and violence, and to do a Black Adam movie that didn’t have that just wouldn’t have been authentic. So we always went into this knowing that we were going to push it as far as we did. We knew it was going to be a collaborative process with the MPAA to finally get it to where we were able, to get that rating, but we were able to pull it off. But it was really important for us to do that. And that’s something Dwayne was very committed to as well.”

The producers also confirmed that they submitted the feature to the MPAA four times in an attempt to cut it down to a PG-13. Black Adam finally got its family-friendly rating just “four or five weeks” before its release.

By Jo Craig – [email protected]

Black Adam will release in theatres on Friday, October 21, 2022.