Kevin Smith must be the most genius marketer on earth. His new $25 million movie got a 700-word story in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, the day before its release. It was probably the most effective advertising a guy could ask for, especially since it was free.
The WSJ story suggests that Smith's new movie, "Zack and Miri Make A Porno" is too hot for most media outlets to touch. Fox refused to run a 30-second spot for the movie, according to the report; the MPAA banned a promotional poster for being too risqué and 15 newspapers and several television stations and cable channels refused to run commercials that used the word "porno."
But this is probably part of Smith's grand plan to promote the bejesus out of a movie that was pretty pricey to make. Smith also claimed that the MPAA forced him to take down a video promo online because it failed the ratings test. "I guess since the teaser was so, shall we say, racy… a rating was in order," Smith wrote. The announcement outraged geek movie bloggers who rushed to Smith's defense, and got the movie a whole lot of free publicity.
"About a week ago, a promo video started floating around for Kevin Smith’s upcoming Seth Rogen comedy, Zach and Miri Make a Porno. I didn’t write about it because, well, I have a hard time getting it up to care about new Kevin Smith movies," wrote one blogger, who went on to write about the MPAA's supposed ban of the video teaser.
But an MPAA spokeswoman says it's not true. The video was not considered advertising, and therefore the MPAA couldn't really care less what Smith did with it. And, despite Smith's vow to submit the teaser for the MPAA's review, the ratings group says he never did.
This isn't the first mainstream movie to tackle the topic of adult-film making. The 2007 movie "The Amateurs,"
starring Jeff Bridges, was about a cash-strapped dude who decides to make a porn film. That movie didn't cause nearly as much controversy as "Zack and Miri," nor did it make much at the box office -- just a meager $16,000.
We understand where Smith is coming from. There's a lot of money at stake and he's got to do whatever he can to get people to the theater. "Zack and Miri" was more expensive to make than most of his movies (with the exception of "Jersey Girl"). His first big hit, "Clerks" was made for less than $30,000 and made more than $3 million at the box office. His most recent film, Clerks
II, was made for $5 million and scored $24 million at the box office.
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