Editorials > Did Fox replace Hitman's director to avoid an R-rating?

Studios always worry about hot, new commercial property. Sometimes, they go completely wild with the editing process (hello, Magnificent Ambersons) and force directors into removing their name from films and create Alan Smithee. 

Over at Twitch, there is a nasty rumor floating around that Fox wasn't happy at all with Xavier Gens' version of video-game adaptation Hitman and hired Nicolas De Toth, who directed edited Live Free or Die Hard. 

Because possibly Gens' version was bloody–but too bloody and gory, with overt influences from Asian crime drama like The Killer and A Bittersweet Life that it would've been slapped with a Hard R. Fox wanted a PG-13 rating and brought Toth on to work the same "magic" he did by turning a Die Hard film into a happy-go-lucky, bloodless action-er. 

But even Todd Brown at Twitch agrees the recent Hitman trailers have been incredibly violent. So is this Fox's way of dealing with such criticism that weeks before release, they change what many assume to be a violent, stylized film into a toothless adaptation? It begs the question about how studios will use trailers in the coming weeks to sell certain films like Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem or Saw IV about being gory or bloody and then perform unknown cuts before their theatrical releases. 

edit: Ack, fixed. Sorry about that.