Update. Eileen here and I just got from Lions Gate the replacement poster and you know what? Devin is right about this being a stunt because the new poster is practically the same. Now we have two large fingers minus the severed part (which only took up a tenth of the original poster and was in black and white) and if the MPAA rejects your poster wouldn’t you want to make sure the new design was replaced with something new? Check out the new poster below.
There are few organizations more fucktarded than the MPAA. People on the web seem to get all atwitter when there’s a PG-13 awarded to some movie, but the only time the MPAA is really newsworthy is when they’re doing stuff like banning movie posters or threatening the work of filmmakers like Atom Egoyan
Besides giving movies ratings (and acting in loco parentis for the rest of us dumb schmucks who can’t be trusted as to what is ok to see in a movie), the MPAA also regulates all advertising materials for all films that are rated (you don’t have to have your film rated. Theoretically it’s a voluntary process. And theoretically Islam is a religion of peace. Yes, I am comparing the MPAA to Al Qaeda). So when Lions Gate released their Saw 2 poster, they needed to get the MPAA’s OK on the design, which they somehow failed to do. The MPAA got a wind of this and cracked down, demanding immediate removal of the offending severed fingers (a clever image, by the way, and likely the only clever thing about the film), as well as a trailer that is claimed to be rated R – even though the MPAA gave it no such rating.
Of course Lions Gate knew what they were doing. This stinks to high heaven of publicity stunt, and a way of making this mechanical sequel to a truly godawful movie seem outlaw.
Speaking of publicity stunts, I don’t know how to feel about the other bit of MPAA news today. THINKFilm has announced that they plan to appeal the MPAA’s NC-17 rating of Atom Egoyan’s new film, Where the Truth Lies – before it’s been officially rated.
It seems that this is legit, though, and that the scene that’s causing the MPAA some trouble is a three-way with Kevin Bacon, Colin Firth and hottie Rachel Blancard. The film is a mystery – the central question being, why do we see Kevin Bacon nekkid so often in movies?
Egoyan had been aware that the film could run into ratings problems (and it’s not like he hasn’t pushed the envelope in the past), but he thought that he had trimmed things enough to earn an R. "I guess I’m naive. I really had no idea it would be a problem. I just heard the deciding factor could be thrusting. Apparently, anything over three thrusts and you’re in trouble. Well, nobody told me. I didn’t even do covering shots, so there’s nothing I can cut away to. This is what you get."
That’s right, he shot the scene only as a single master, which means he has nothing to trim without violating the intent and the spirit of the shot. And now we have the MPAA butting (no pun) right up against artistic vision. Yet again.
Replacement Poster
