Question:
Why did Warner Brothers spend half a million
dollars to digitally alter 8 seconds of Stanley Kubrick’s
film Eyes Wide Shut?
Answer:
To avoid getting an “NC-17” rating
from the MPAA.
Not only does an NC-17 rating reduce the size of a movie’s
in-theater audience (by prohibiting anyone under the
age of eighteen from buying a ticket), but it prevents
the film from being licensed to either network television
or the airlines for in-flight entertainment. Worse yet,
it also means that the giant retailer Wal-Mart--which
writes the largest annual paycheck to the studios--will
not carry the video or DVD in its stores. Nor will Blockbuster
Entertainment. Since director Stanley Kubrick had contractually
agreed to deliver an R-rated film before he died, Warner
Brothers had a computer-graphics house insert digital
fig leaves (actually bobbing heads) in the film’s
orgy scene. As a result, Eyes Wide Shut was
able to earn the less-restrictive R rating from the
MPAA.
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