It’s no secret that director Kevin Smith has been having a rough time in getting an R-rating for his new comedy Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Last month star Seth Rogen went on the record and said the MPAA was giving them trouble with some of the sex stuff in the film. Well now it’s not just rumoring, Zack and Miri has been officially hit with the NC-17 kiss of death.

It was the guys at Kevin’s own site NewsAskew who first uncovered it. A search on the MPPA’s official site lists Zack and Miri Make a Porno as “Rating: NC-17”. Reason for the rating? As expected, “Rated NC-17 for some graphic sexuality.” Gee, thanks MPAA. As if we couldn’t figure that out from the title. I’m sure people everywhere were planning to take their kids.

Though I think we’d all rather see the NC-17 cut and watch the movie as its director originally intended it to be seen, slapping any movie with an NC-17 spells box office doom. Not because people won’t show up to see it, but because most major theaters will refuse to carry it, thus taking away our right to choose whether or not we want it in front of our eyes. The really frustrating thing in this particular case is that if any filmmaker has the kind of audience necessary to blow up the stigma attached to an NC-17, it’s Kevin Smith. Heck, an NC-17 rating might even help his ticket sales… his crowd is going to be there money in hand regardless. Sadly if it’s not playing, they’re powerless to support it.

Don’t worry though, the fight’s not over for Kevin Smith’s Porno. Under the movie’s rating on the MPAA site, there’s a little note which reads: “Pending Appeal”. That means they’re fighting the rating, and there’s still reason to think this thing will eventually get the R it needs to show up in a theater near you. Of course who knows what sort of cuts Kevin will have to make to his film in order to achieve that. When the MPAA gets involved with what you’ll be allowed to see, there’s always a depressing chance that one of the casualties of their interference could be the movie’s funniest scene. I guess there’s always DVD.

From Cinema Blend

Elizabeth posted on blog the information about her appearing at Comic Con. Read it below:

The Zack & Miri Make A Porno chat with Kevin, me and Seth is Friday night at Comic-con. I think they are prepping a red-band trailer too!!! I’m so excited to share this one with audiences. Kevin, of course, will be a highlight at Comic-con as always. I mean, have you seen this:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ou2mVnElp6c

To view: you can click the title above too (I have to write this for my mother-in-law, who might be one of only 9 people who ever read this blog).

If you’re going to Comic Con, have fun!

Thanks to last summer’s double dose of “Knocked Up” and “Superbad,” combined with Judd Apatow-branded TV cult classics “Freaks and Geeks” and “Undeclared,” I could not be more in love with Seth Rogen. And being the tried-and-true Jersey Girl that I am, I am super stoked about the upcoming Kevin Smith film starring none other than Rogen himself (yes he does work on projects not involving Apatow) “Zach and Miri Make a Porno.”

The film sounds like Smith’s getting back to his roots of honest emotion and complete vulgarity as the plot centers on two broke best friends. The female lead played by Elizabeth Banks (shown with Rogen above), who teams up with Rogen to make a porno film for some quick cash, but end up falling for each other along the way.

While production wrapped back in March, the film has hit a new, and perhaps damaging, bump in the road - an NC-17 rating.

According to an MTV.com news interview with Rogen last week, the filmmakers are working with the MPAA to win an R rating (a standard for Kevin Smith films), but Rogen and Co. sound none too pleased with the process thus far.

This begs the question, is the NC-17 rating even relevant these days?

This past awards season, Academy Award winning director Ang Lee caused quite a stir with his NC-17 drama “Lust, Caution”. The film received mixed to poor reviews and seemed to fall quickly out of sight at theaters. For some unknown reason (har har), NC-17 ratings don’t exactly spell box office bonanza these days.

Remember that other much-talked-about NC-17 movie from a few years back, “The Brown Bunny?” Yeah, I didn’t think you would.

So the question remains: if the films aren’t going to be able to reach their targeted audience, or any audience for that matter, what’s the point? Fans love Smith, and Smith loves his fans, so while other directors claim they just want the best film possible, Smith on-the-edge films targeted to a young crowd only fit under that category marginally.

Here’s hoping Smith and crew can sweet talk the MPAA into an R rating before the scheduled October release and before taking too much out of the film.

From Sign On San Diego

Kevin Smith’s upcoming comedy Zack and Miri Make a Porno, with Elizabeth Banks and Seth Rogen, may actually be a porno. No, seriously. The MPAA is trying to slap it with an NC-17 rating, meaning you’d have a tough time seeing it down at the megaplex.

So what’s in this thing that makes it so, like, porny? We asked Seth, and here’s what he said…

“It’s like a romantic comedy,” Rogen told us this week, at the press day for The Pineapple Express, which opens in August. “It’s a romantic relationship movie—with a lot of porn and balls.”

Wait, whose balls? “My balls are not in it,” he clarified.

Still, Smith is fighting for an R rating, as he did when Clerks first got slapped with an NC-17—simply for dirty language. “You can disembowel someone in a youth hostel in Romania, but you can’t show people having sex,” Rogen said. “I think it’s weird.”

If Zack and Miri does get an NC-17, Rogen thinks his hit flicks Knocked Up and Superbad should have, too.

“This is not anything outside of what we’ve done before,” he told us. “The word porno is in the title, and that kind of freaks people out.”

Well, that and the balls, maybe.

From E! Online

Kevin Smith’s latest, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, is apparently having trouble securing an R rating from the MPAA, sending star Seth Rogen on the obligatory rant about how the MPAA cracks down on sex while giving virtually all violence a pass. You can check out his full comments at MTV if you like, and no prizes for guessing which torture-happy recent horror franchise he cites as an example of what the MPAA should be targeting instead of pestering his movie. The tongue-halfway-in-cheek kicker from Rogen: “The MPAA? It’s my mission to sue the MPAA and take them down. I don’t know how to go about doing that. But to me, it seems like it’s something that has to be taken care of.”

I’m in the camp that thinks the problem lies less in the MPAA’s attitudes toward “objectionable” content and more in the stigma placed on the NC-17. For a movie whose marketing campaign has consisted of cheerfully courting controversy — check out the hilarious teaser if you don’t believe me — it’s a bit disappointing that Zack and Miri doesn’t run with the harsher rating. The asinine restrictions on advertising that accompany the NC-17 stamp would be a bummer, but the blogs and magazines would go nuts, and I think the movie would do pretty well.

Do watch that teaser (which had MPAA issues of its own) if you haven’t already. Among other things, it will make you fall in love with Elizabeth Banks. Uh, if you haven’t already.

From Cinematical