January 31, 2009

Wal-mart Hates Porno...Kevin Smith style

Is it just me, or is it pretty ridiculous that the chain won't sell Zack and Miri Make a Porno in its stores because of the word Porno, making for an alternate DVD cover release, as Variety notes:
Poor Harvey Weinstein just can't catch a break. The Kevin Smith comedy "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" was supposed to catapult both Smith and the Weinstein Co. into the Judd Apatowian stratosphere; instead, the $24 million production earned just $37 million worldwide. Now hopes of a rich and fruitful afterlife are being threatened by one of the nation's largest DVD sales outlets.
Wal-Mart won't carry the "p" word in its stores and has forced Weinstein to create new DVD covers that say simply, "Zack and Miri." As a result, a raunchy sex comedy about two friends who try to reverse their financial condition by producing a porn movie now sounds like a gentle romance between two retirees, possibly one of Hal Ashby's lesser works only now being released by Criterion.
While the garrulous Smith may be delusional on occasion ("I'm just so shocked that the word 'porno' meant that much to people in terms of, like, they found it insanely offensive and don't want to see it on display," he tells Victoria Ahearn), he nonetheless has a point: "Some Wal-Mart-er could buy it and think: 'Oh, 'Zack and Miri,' looks lovely,' and pop it in and there's ... some pretty graphic stuff."
"Zack and Miri" DVDs, with and without the porno, will go on sale Feb. 2.
-So you can buy the unrated version of SAW, and you can buy Zack and Miri, in which 2 friends make a porno, but you can't buy Zack and Miri Make a Porno? Seems insane and mildly deceptive to me. Kevin Smith has a right to be a little upset over this (as he's written on his message board a bit about it). Only in Wal-Mart's America I guess...

3 comments:

  1. utter stupidity continues in regard to Wal-Mart

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  2. do they still sell guns and bullets?

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  3. I think they were supposed to phase it out, but in rural areas they still do I believe

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