Zack & Miri Make a Marketing Mess

One of the things most people don't know about the movie business is that film production and film marketing campaigns are completely separate beasts. In the last mile of what is the most collaborative art form ever devised, the screenwriter's original intent (which has since been destroyed or enhanced, depending on your point of view, by the studio, the director and the actors) is placed as a glob of fresh clay in the hands of a marketing team. Their highly focused task: Get butts in the seats at all costs, especially on opening weekend.

When you have 90+ minutes to mold into a 30-second commercial, you can pretty much do whatever you want. This is how a movie like "Leaving Las Vegas"--very good, very dark--can be made to seem like a light comedy. The marketers say, "No one will see this film unless it looks funny." They hire firms whose entire business is creating trailers, and they say, "Make this Oscar hopeful about a desperately suicidal alcoholic look like the laugh-out-loud comedy romp of the summer!" And they do.

The new movie, "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" is the latest transparent example of the difference between creating something and trying to market it. The director, Kevin Smith, is known as the guy who opened up the world of raunch in a whole new way. Smith begat Judd Apatow, whose "40-Year-Old Virgin," "Knocked Up" and others produced the subgenre of "raunch with a heart."

When I first saw the trailer/ad for "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," I was somewhat amazed that Kevin Smith (now maybe trying to out-Apatow Apatow) would think he could get away with that plot and that movie title. Clearly, this was the definitive shot across the bow saying that porn had gone, to some extent, mainstream.

Then a funny thing happened. Some time after the opening weekend, which must have been a disappointment, the ads began to change. Suddenly, there was no reference to the basic plot of the movie (two longtime platonic friends decide that the only way they can survive financially is to make a skin flick), the scenes were reduced to vague one-liners and slapstick vignettes, and the title appearing on screen and spoken by the narrator was shortened to simply, "Zack and Miri," as if this were just a modern-day "When Harry Met Sally."

Time will tell if this strategy works, but I suspect that in the Internet age, it will prove to have come too late. On the other hand, if you could remove the potential public shame of walking into a theater to see a movie with "Porno" in the title... let's just say, DVD sales will be huge.

Just for fun, here's a famous video showing how "The Shining" can be re-spun as a feel-good family drama.