The King's Profanity Free Speech?
Friday, January 28, 2011 at 11:04PM 
Was Harvey Weinstein just missing his old Harvey Scissorhands moniker (culled from his love of demanding cuts from the movies he'd bought from his days at Miramax)? A couple of days ago the story was making the rounds that The King's Speech would be reedited to get a family-friendlier MPAA rating. I ignored it because it seemed like a publicity stunt but like all good publicity stunts (if that's what it was) it stuck in my head. It's such a strange idea, to reedit a movie while it's playing. But perhaps it's no stranger than the R rating the film won in the first place. The last time I heard the naughty F word used so innocuously in a movie was Four Weddings and a Funeral when there was a string of them for comic effect when people were running late to one of those multiple weddings -- I don't remember which. Or is just yet another publicity stunt to keep people talking about The King's Speech about which maybe there's not that much to talk about as it's entertaining but not exactly deep or as editorial ready as its main rivals to Oscar glory?
Between this and Blue Valentine I'm really beginning to wonder if the MPAA wasn't actually dissolved a year ago and is now just a front organization for the Weinstein Company's publicity department.
MPAA, The King's Speech, publicity stunts
Reader Comments (4)
Fuck-a-doodle-doo
Maybe after the rating is edited it will be edited again to contain loving messages to the academy voters, conveniently before voting closes. The MPAA probably gets paid by production companies post-release to evaluate a new more oscar/publicity-friendly rating. Just saying.
Silly question: If it is edited, will the new movie be considered the "official" one and will voters have to see that one to vote or not for it? And, even if it doesn't make much of a difference, is it OK to change a movie while it is in the middle of the Oscar season?
Theoritically, it will not be the same movie anymore so one could argue its nominations aren't worth anything. Especially the editing one.
Maybe there's a rule about small changes not to be taken into consideration or they just realise that AMPAS doesn't really think that "correctly".
James T -- i'm not aware of any specific rule about this and unfortunately it has happened before during eligibility periods. A Star is Born (1954) was famously pulled and chopped up (the footage now forever lost) and put back into theaters in a shorter version during its run. And then of course there was that fiasco with The New World (1995) when nobody knew which version they were watching.
Clue: if you're still editing the movie is unfinished and shouldn't yet be in theaters.