Why Fans Can't Stop Talking About An Adult Version Of This Robin Williams Family Friendly Movie

Hollywood lost a great talent when Robin Williams died in 2014 and to this day, fans are clamoring for more of his work. And if the rumor about one of his most famous movies is true, they just might get it. It all started back in 2015, when director Chris Columbus gave an interview with Yahoo! Entertainment about filming Mrs. Doubtfire. He said that he used multiple cameras to film the movie and that it was like filming a documentary. Columbus added that he used this technique in order to get reaction shots from the cast while Williams improvised. "For instance, in the dinner scene toward the end of the movie, the other actors had no idea what he was going to say. And it was getting their expressions and reactions the first time they ever heard him say something like that," the director, who also made Home Alone, said. 

This meant that a lot ended up on the cutting room floor and even Columbus joked that he had four cuts of the film, "literally, a PG-rated version of the film, PG-13, R and NC-17," he joked. People will do anything for those last two versions.

In March 2021, interest in this supposed adult cut of Mrs. Doubtfire, which ended up with a PG-13 rating, resurfaced and on Twitter, people were admitting just how far they would go to see it. One person tweeted, "I would give the entirety of my stimulus for the NC17 of Mrs. Doubtfire." But other people were a little wary of what all of his improvisations would actually amount to. "I'd rather it not be. 90s NC-17 humor may not jiive well with today's culture. Don't want anything tarnishing Robin's legacy," someone insightfully added. 

Still, others questioned the veracity of the tweet, noting that films aren't given ratings until they are fully edited, so it seemed unlikely that director Chris Columbus had actually put together all four versions. Even Mara Wilson, who was in Mrs. Doubtfire as a young child, doubted the existence of an actual NC-17 cut. In 2016, she said in an interview, "I don't know about NC-17, but with some of the things [Robin] said, I'm sure there was probably an R cut somewhere." So what gives? Does this thing exist or what?

According to Snopes, it's very unlikely that there is an actual, full NC-17 cut of Mrs. Doubtfire. More likely, there is a ton of extra footage and outtakes somewhere with Robin Williams' ad libs and improvisations, and a ton of bloopers. Even the screenwriter, Randi Mayem Singer, confirmed this much, tweeting in the midst of the call for the NC-17 version, "Just to clarify: I remember the dirty dailies. I can't confirm if there's an entire cut." 

Sadly, fans might never get to see any of that footage — although it could sell at auction for millions, right? But there is a Broadway version of Mrs. Doubtfire that received great reviews, put on hold only due to the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. It might not be a dirty version, and it won't include Robin Williams' dirty jokes, but for the true Mrs. Doubtfire fan, definitely a welcome addition to the canon.