Smith wins 'Porno' case

Kevin gets 'Porno' to a wider audience

And finally a good decision from Hollywood. Kevin Smith has won his appeal.

The Clerks and Jay & Silent Bob writer/director/star has been working with Seth Rogen on Zack and Miri Make a Porno and, basically because it has the word 'porno' in the title, the Motion Picture Association of America had slapped an NC-17 rating on it.

And in box office terms, an NC-17 is fatal.

The film follows best friends and roommates Rogen and Elizabeth Banks who decide to make a porn movie to get themselves out of debt.

Smith had already made some changes – the MPAA also had some issues with two sex scenes involving co-stars Jason (Jay) Mewes and Katie Morgan – but he didn't want to trim the scenes further so appealed to the MPAA's, er, good sense.

'They felt it was rather sexually graphic,' said Smith. 'My point is, it was comically graphic. All the sex in the movie with the exception of one scene is very cartoonish, very campy. It wasn't designed to titillate.

'We didn't set out to make an NC-17 film. That's just commercial suicide.'

Anyway, Smith appealed... and won. That makes it three appeal victories for Smith, as he also campaigned for Clerks and Jersey Girl.

Besides, as he explains: 'Anybody not inclined to see a movie with “Porno” in the title is not going to see it, so it kind of regulates itself to a degree.

'And anybody who is going is not going to be surprised by what they see.'

Do we sense an 'uncut' DVD in Zack and Miri's future?

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