Theater Owners to Studios: No More Unrated DVDs, Please
Filed under: Universal, The Weinstein Co., Home Entertainment, Movie Marketing
MPAA leader Dan Glickman had a lot more to say about the ratings system this week during the ShoWest film exhibition and distribution convention. As you remember, the MPAA unveiled revisions to its system earlier this year, and since then it has had to continually explain, clarify, defend and fine tune its changes due to confusion and dissatisfaction. One thing that continues to be unclear, though, is if the MPAA is more interested in removing the stigma of the NC-17 rating or in altering the perception that an R-rated film is perfectly suitable for all ages. On Thursday the Classification and Ratings Administration, which operates the ratings system for the MPAA and the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO), revealed a new advisory for the R rating that it hopes will be a better warning to parents. It will read: "Generally, it is not appropriate for parents to bring their young children with them to R-rated motion pictures."
Additionally, some theater chains are looking to go further and ban very young children from R-rated movies, a practice already observed by many art house cinemas. NATO head John Fithian also spoke about the ratings system at ShoWest, and it is apparent that theater owners have their own ideas regarding the subject. First he stressed the importance of having theatrical releases rated by the MPAA in order to perform well. Even though the NC-17 rating has a stigma attached, movies released with that rating earn more money than those released without a rating. He also claimed that without the ratings system we'd possibly have to deal instead with a government-run system of censorship.
Finally he made a request for Hollywood to stop releasing special unrated editions of DVDs -- or at least stop marketing them as being better because they are uncensored. He said that this practice undermines the authority and purpose of the ratings, plus it emphasizes the idea that for some movies it is better to avoid the theater and to wait for the more complete DVD. I guess we'll have to see if the studios abide by this request, but just be warned there may only be one version of Knocked Up, so you might as well just go see it in the theater. Grindhouse, on the other hand, will probably need an unrated DVD no matter what.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-16-2007 @ 11:29PM
Scott Weinberg said...
Having just seen Knocked Up at SXSW (and having a conversation with the very cool editor, Brent White), I can practically GUARANTEE that there will be an unrated edition of that flick. It might be the only version released (as Uni did with the "extended-only" version of The 40-Year-Old Virgin), but apparently there's a whole lot of very funny stuff that had to get the axe from the theatrical cut.
P.S. The movie is freaking hilarious.
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3-17-2007 @ 8:51PM
John said...
Who the hell are they to propose what I should and should not watch in the privacy of my own home?
the key phrase in that post was this:
"plus it emphasizes the idea that for some movies it is better to avoid the theater and to wait for the more complete DVD. "
In other words.
Don't deny the movie theaters their $7.50 per ticket and $25 in concessions.
For many movies it is indeed much better to wait for the unrated versions. As an adult, I can handle any humor, gore, sexual situations, anything, and it should be my choice to do so. If the studio wishes to release a version untainted by the MPAA, then so be it. As a good parent, I don't allow my kids to watch what is unsuitable for them.
It sounds like to me the MPAA is trying to justify itself.
We appreciate what they do, they give theaters a leg to stand on when they deny kids access to certain movies, and they give parents a basic idea of what we can expect..but don't tell me the studios can't give me the option to watch what I want, how I want, because there is the chance a bad parent, would allow their kids to see it. If thats an issue, take it up with bad parents..not us.
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3-17-2007 @ 9:00PM
rtms said...
That last part is an insult to the directors and to movie goers in general. It's telling them that they have to be censored so the theater can make money but the director can't see their version/vision truly translated the way they see it. I like unrated DVD's because they show us what the director really wanted to say.
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3-18-2007 @ 1:39PM
Ed81240 said...
The unrated DVD is merely the case of the play gound bully (aka MPAA) losing its control over those its kept in fear for so long. If The movie theaters are so afraid of losing money, then they need to grow a backbone and demand the MPAA quit censoring our movies.
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3-18-2007 @ 1:31AM
Patrick Helwig said...
This is obviously an attempt be the National Assn. of Theater Owners to encourage people to see the movie in the theater rather than wait for an unrated DVD. Problems with this are many; not every town gets every movie, many theater chains won't show unrated/NC-17 films, and some people prefer for various reasons to wait for the DVD. If this did happen and all those unrated movies were just rated NC-17 instead business at Netflix would pick up as they currently carry both unrated and NC-17 films. I use Netflix for this very reason since Blockbuster online doesn't seem to have as many unrated films and no NC-17 films at all.
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3-29-2007 @ 8:14AM
Peter the Great One, FUTURE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA said...
I think the MPAA and NATO have to both have to grow backbones. First of all it is a lie that NC-17 movies make more money than Unrated. Let me explain R rated movies make more because they are released more widely in theaters than NC-17's (from R's making 40-60-100 million, to NC-17's maybe making a total of 1 million in their theatrical release) Getting back to NC-17 movies making more than unrated i say the unrated cuts on DVD make more money because they are either dirtier or more violent than the r rated theatrical release or they were the NC-17 version of the movie before it was rated to go into theaters. You easily can count all the NC-17 movies released through theaters to video because there are only 4 dozen of them, while R rated movies that have different "unrated" cuts number in the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands released to video in the 3 generations of media (1st-VHS & Beta Max,2nd-DVD, 3rd-BluRay &HDDVD) The NC-17 rating will only lose its stigma if the theaters show them and have kids not see any R or NC-17 movies. The Movie studios who they were in coup with realize that unrated cuts make money because they were not released in theaters and people will pay money to see them no matter if it was in a theater, or on a disc they watched at home.
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4-05-2007 @ 4:12AM
jbyrd130 said...
RE: NC-17's making more than Unrated - Even in theatrical runs, this is often a fallacy, at least nowadays. One word: "Shortbus"... higher theatrical gross than "Where The Truth Lies," "Mysterious Skin" or "Ken Park" (which, granted, wasn't released at all in the US). All these films were sexually "problematic" but it's probable that "Shorbus" did so well because it knew how to avoid an inevitable MPAA nighmare, develop a grassroots audience, and book arthouses independently (was on 70 screens at it's max and ran for 18 weeks total). If you want blockbuster returns, I can see how all of this is an issue, but these days it's possible for a "small" or indie flick to maximize on a theatrical run.
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