‘Prometheus’ is Officially Rated R

It's been unclear up until now if Ridley Scott's 'Prometheus' -- the semi-prequel to 'Alien' -- would be rated R or PG-13. But today we can put the speculating to rest as Fox has released confirmation that the film has indeed been handed an R rating.

Collider received confirmation via 20th Century Fox that the film received the R rating for "sci-fi violence, including some intense images, and brief language." That sci-fi violence and intense imagery must be pretty, well, intense to earn the big R from the MPAA.

It's a win for fans, too, as a big budget, dark sci-fi epic of this caliber earning an R rating -- and almost sure to rake it in big in the box office -- means that the studios will take more risks with this sort of material, giving directors bigger budgets for genre films.

The R-rating has long been the kiss of death for genre pictures, which already struggle to appeal to wider audiences. And while an R-rating appeals to the genre fan, it's not necessarily appealing to a general audience and the film becomes harder to market. Fox has been hitting the marketing on 'Prometheus' pretty hard, though, and the R-rating is coming in now at moment when interest is highest.

See just how intense that imagery is for yourself on June 8, when 'Prometheus' opens nationwide.