The call for “the NC-17 cut” from Mrs. Doubtfire has been issued

Okay, so here’s the story: Back in 2015, Christopher Columbus, director of the downright insane Robin Williams comedy Mrs. Doubtfire gave an interview to Yahoo Movies in which he claimed that, as a result of Williams’ known penchant for crude improvisation, he had managed to put together four full parts of the 1993 comedy at the time, from increasingly vulgar vintage. Columbus, possibly unwise, called these parts (which, to our knowledge, were never shown before the MPAA), in terms of standard movie ratings: “A PG-rated version of the movie, PG-13, R, and NC-17 . “Mrs. Doubtfire was eventually released as a PG-13 movie.) The interview itself is no longer online, but there’s no indication that Columbus ever did anything with these cuts, or that they – back in the days when movies were cut to actual movie stock – even existed physically. (Instead of being collected in his head, for example, with the stuff he knew he had at hand.) But he said it, and that’s how the seeds of desire are planted.

Skipped to today, then – emboldened by its successful efforts to induce a multinational corporation to release the Snyder Cut from Justice League– the internet is starting to look around and wonder what other requirements it can meet. Several people on Twitter came up against Columbus’ old statements, making the call for “the NC-17 cut” from. Mrs. Doubtfire has now been released.

As noted by Snopes, but it is extreme unclear whether this legendary artifact really exists, or whether it should-like the Snyder Cut, now that we think about it– must be dutifully assembled from a lot of old pieces and a large stock of other people’s money. Sure, Mrs. Doubtfire star Mara Wilson has said (back in 2016) that she’d never heard of an NC-17 version (though she noted she wouldn’t be surprised if an R-rated cut was ever made, given Williams’ love of ad-libbing.) screenwriter, Randi Mayem Singer, responded today with happy memories of the film’s ‘dirty dailies’, she could not confirm that the shot in question was ever actually made. So it is for sure noises as if there probably isn’t an actual NC-17 edition of the movie, as much as there are a bunch of very blue outtakes that might still be around waiting to screw up a new Blu-ray release.

Meanwhile, there’s another whole other question here, which is: do we really, uh, want to hear Robin Williams do NC-17 rated material – which, by the day’s definitions, should be pretty explicitly sexual – in a movie where he’s dressed up as a woman so he can make fun of his ex-wife to let him back into her life? Williams was one of the gifted improvisers of comedy, but also one of the most determined unfiltered; hearing his attitude (and the attitude of the era) to sex (and, like a guess, transgender people) tossed like a hand grenade in a beloved classic would probably be a whole lot less fun than it was at first body sounds blush.

But still: the internet has demanded. Only God knows what happens next.