When you go to a movie theater, what you see is what you get. But a while later, buy the same film on DVD and you may get an eyeful. An example given in this report at Yahoo News, says that the film American Wedding has two strippers at a bachelor party. One is dressed skimpily as a maid, the other as a police officer with a whip. They tie up a young man and persuade another to cover his body with chocolate syrup. Though there's some frontal nudity, the scene is interrupted when the intended groom arrives with in-laws in tow.
On the film set however, the cameras continued to roll for an additional 10 minutes, producing racier action for the upcoming DVD. Now that's drama! No, that's marketing.
"We knew some of it wasn't going to pass the ratings board. We went for it anyway," says Chris Moore, a producer of American Wedding and the first two coming-of-age American Pie films. "We know going in that, even if it isn't going to make it in the film, it is going to make it on the DVD." Extras are one of DVD's main sales tools. The disc's ability to hold additional content commentaries, making-of videos, trailers, alternate endings and, of course, deleted scenes has helped turn renters into buyers, to the tune of .2 billion this year, a 40% jump from 2002. This year for the first time, movie fans will spend more on DVDs than on tickets at the box office. This all leads to ratings creep PG-13 becomes R, and R approaches "unrated" NC-17. And all of that complicates the lives of retailers, rental outlets and parents, even as it maximizes a studio's investment and a film's sales potential.
"Whether it's a comedy or thriller, you assume there is stuff a person couldn't have seen in the theater because of the rating boards," says Moore, also a Project Greenlight executive producer with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck "You have this footage and it's a great marketing hook. The kids get to see what they couldn't show in the theater." |
Apparently, "unrated" DVDs are one of the hottest things going in consumer sales. Buyers vote with their dollars and the unrated versions have consistently blown away the competition. Among 10 DVDs released in two versions, the unrated typically outsold the rated version by three times or more, says Video Store magazine's research director, Judith McCourt. The unrated versions of the American Pie films have outsold the rated versions 3-to-1. "Unrated releases have a forbidden quality that consumers can't resist, and that translates to an expanded revenue opportunity," McCourt says.
Source: yahoo.com
Top news
Our Community messages
Happy Birthday to you drake85 
r_saotome thank you for your reaction in the news section. 
SkyIslandHiker just logged in, Good to see you back!