Colleen Hoover’s New Movie Almost Earned Her First R-Rating Before A Key Scene Was Cut

Reminders of Him was written and published by Hoover in 2022, and the film adaptation stars Maika Monroe as Kenna Rowan, an ex-convict trying to make ends meet and come to terms with her past. Along comes Tyriq Withers as Ledger Ward, who is seemingly intertwined with Kenna and her tragic backstory. Against their better judgment, they fall in love and consummate in Kenna’s apartment.

In an interview with People, director Vanessa Caswill discussed how Reminders of Him’s adaptation could’ve turned R-rated, but they decided to cut a scene from the source material — “the sex scene.” When asked why Caswill removed an important moment between Kenna and Ledger’s romance as their relationship developed, Caswill stated that:

“In the book, the first time they have sex, it’s very descriptive. I mean, it goes on quite a few pages. I shot it. We shot it. And it’s not there, sadly. The studio really loved the sex scene. They were like, ‘This is a good sex scene!'”

It turns out, Caswill did intend to keep the intimate moment in the movie, but it would’ve ruined the PG-13 rating the movie currently has, making it unavailable to a lot of Hoover fans who want to see Reminders of Him come to life. However, romance isn’t dead in the movie, and there are plenty of intimate moments between the couple, and Hoover stated that her job was to make sure readers were happy “while also being the one to crush some of those hopes by not being able to fit everything in.”

Reminders of Him is not the only book adaptation to arrive from Hoover, and some are more salacious than others. The now-controversial adaptation of her best-selling novel It Ends With Us landed in the news, but not in the way the author hoped for. Leading stars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have been in the press recently following a legal battle after accusations of inappropriate behavior on set surfaced worldwide.

Reminders of Him is available to watch in theaters now.