Movie bosses were forced to re-cut Daniel Radcliffe's new supernatural thriller The Woman In Black to land a less-restrictive age rating in Britain.

Film regulators slapped a 15-classification on the horror, an adaption of Susan Hill's scary novel, meaning viewers under the age of 15 could not see the movie.

However, chiefs at Momentum Pictures were keen to land a 12A-rating to open the film up to a younger audience - and as a result, six seconds of "strong violence" and "horror" have been removed from the final edit.

A statement from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) reads: "This work was cut. The cut(s) were made at the request of the distributor to achieve a particular category.

"To obtain this category cuts of zero m (minutes) six (seconds) were required. Distributor chose to reduce moments of strong violence/horror in order to achieve a '12A' classification.

"Cuts made in line with BBFC Guidelines and policy (sic). A 15 classification without cuts was available. In addition to the six seconds of visual cuts, substitutions were also made by darkening some shots and by reducing the sound levels on others."

The film is set for release Friday 10 February.