Did a PG-13 Rating do damage to the box office haul of this year’s Power Rangers reboot? Director Dean Israelite thinks so. Before you get visions of a hard R blood-splattered erotic thriller of a Power Rangers adventure, his issue is that he feels its a PG picture.

Speaking with ScreenRant, Israelite shared that he believes audiences were scared off by the PG-13 MPAA ruling and that meant parents and/or guardians were staying away from bringing kids to the Megazord smackdown. He thinks there’s a unmistakable connection between the rating and the movie’s modest box office performance.

“Yes, definitely. Definitely. And not only do I think it, but there’s been market studies on it, and the findings have been that if the movie were rated PG- I don’t want to go into the specific numbers- but if the movie had been rated PG, there would have been more traffic,” he told ScreenRant. “I think parents were unsure if they could bring their kids to the movie, which surprised me, because the movie is a tame PG-13.”

Issues with MPAA rulings and how they impact films is nothing new, but Israelite can’t be too surprised that the notoriously conservative rating system would give the PG-13 stamp to a movie with masturbation gags and a revenge porn element. He is confident you’ll find it more on the PG side if you check it out at home.

“We did a lot of preview screenings, and to me, it felt like a seven-year-old might be scared, but in a good way,” explains Israelite. “They liked that they were scared of Rita, but they still came out of the movie enjoying it, they liked what was going on. I think we really tread that line well, so it was disappointing that parents didn’t know that they could take their kids to it. I’m hoping now, with it coming out on DVD and Blu-ray, and On Demand, that parents will feel more comfortable. That maybe they’ll check it out for themselves and then see that it’s suitable.”

Let the great “is Zordon appropriate for my 7-year-old?” debate begin! The DVD/Blu-ray edition of Power Rangers arrives June 27.

(Via ScreenRant)