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Behind the scenes of No Man's Land might have performed as well...

Kim Hollis: Much has been made of advertisers' skittishness over the phrase "Make a Porno". Do you think this nervousness is unjustified or do you think that Kevin Smith would have been better off dropping the second half of the title?

Pete Kilmer: Yeah he should dropped the "Make a Porno" art of the title sooner rather than later like he did for a lot of markets. The country has moved to be more and more conservative, compared to when he first started out. It really hurt Smith in the opening weekend, I think.

Brandon Scott: Well, first off, let's clarify that this was not his choice. This was the studio's decision. They removed it from all ads on TV, they couldn't get any reasonable poster approved and had to go with the stick figure poster. When you have Utah banning the film from theaters, it's not a good sign, I guess. Zack and Miri is not a very good title, agreed? The only interesting aspect to selling the movie is the "Make a Porno" phrase. I think advertisers do what they feel is necessary to protect themselves. It's a tough, slippery slope on all fronts. Would it have been any better if they had made it a more PC title like "Zack and Miri Have Sex on Camera in Hopes of Making Money"?

Sean Collier: The few theaters who won't show it aside (theaters that are showing Saw V, by the way,), I don't think it made much of a difference. Anyone who is turned off by the words "Make a Porno" probably isn't going to see the film either way, and if they did, they probably would've demanded a refund. It's a wash, I'd say.

Marty Doskins: I thought they had removed the "Make a Porno" from *all* TV ads, but I still found that they seemed to alternate between the "with" and "without" versions when I was watching. The "without" version really seemed like a much friendlier title to me. Maybe friendlier isn't the right word, but it just seemed more appealing. While I know that Brandon was joking, maybe a different ending to the movie would've worked also. "Make Ends Meet" would've had an subtle sexual connotation. It may have sounded more appealing, but I don't know that it would've made that much difference.

Kim Hollis: I'm thinking having it in the title didn't make a difference to the people who were going to see it anyway. It's not like a bunch of grandmothers are going to go see the movie thinking that there is something in that movie for them. It all seemed to be much ado about nothing. We know porn exists. The movie itself is not porn. Let's not get overreactionary, here.

Marty Doskins: You're definitely right, Kim. Personally, I think it just sounds better without "Make a Porno", but by no means do I think anyone would've been fooled into going if they had just called it 'Zack and Miri". People watching the trailer or commercial would've made their decision from what was presented.

David Mumpower: There is a story floating around about Smith's pitch of this film to the Weinsteins and he claims the greenlight was given immediately. He says he asked, "Don't you want to know what the movie is about?" and the response is, "Is it about anything other than the title?" That's exactly the problem with dropping that half of the title. Nobody would have gone to see a movie called "Snakes on...", after all. Okay, that may be a bad example since not as many people showed up for that as expected, but you get my point.

That Chace Crawford sure is dreamy.

Kim Hollis: The Haunting of Molly Hartley opened in fifth place with $6 million this weekend. Is this a good enough result for Freestyle Releasing to build upon?

Brandon Scott: All they can do is try. I'm not sure what the production cost was on this, but I can't imagine to be very big, so this might make enough to give it another go and continue to learn the business. My awareness was sky high on this film, (read: I didn't even know it was coming out nor who was in it until I became "aware" of it - and I use the term loosely), over the weekend. If Freestyle can re-pay their financiers, its all good. The film business, especially for indies, is changing and in flux. The talk is that the traditional models are no longer in place. Freestyle Releasing might have a place in the new millennium - who knows?

Sean Collier: No. No. No. PG-13 horror films where nothing happens are never going to make money. The first half of this decade featured a few fluke-y profitable tame horror releases, but it's usually a recipe for a) disaster and b) me falling asleep in the theater. If a horror film is good, it will find an audience, no matter what the rating. If it is not good, allowing pre-teens to attend will not save it. Adjusted for inflation, The Exorcist made something in the neighborhood of $725 freakin' million. In 1973. R. Rated. Horror. Can. Make. Money. Hollywood. Get. Over. It.

Kim Hollis: I guess it's an okay result for the studio (especially compared to their "scary" movie of last year, Sarah Landon and the Paranormal Hour), but it's basically forgotten after this weekend. It can't have cost much, so I suppose it will be profitable. I'm just not really sure why you bother with theatrical release on stuff like this. Just send it straight-to-DVD.

Kevin Chen: So you're saying that the rating doesn't matter, but only R rated horror films are good enough to make money?

David Mumpower: I always liked the Sarah Landon people. They had exactly the correct level of excitement for a group making their first studio picture. Too many people in this industry are so jaded that they have lost the thrill of the game. I wish the results had been inverse with the impossibly awful Molly Hartley, but Chace Crawford would have had to switch films for that to happen. I also think something that helped The Haunting of Molly Hartley a lot is its similarity in title to the wildly successful The Exorcism of Emily Rose (a PG-13 horror blockbuster, Mr. Chen!), which wasn't accidental, I'm sure.

Kevin Chen: I'll see your Exorcism of Emily Rose and raise you a Sixth Sense.

My point is not to suggest that a PG-13 rating is a major determinant of box office for horror films (either up or down), but to note that Sean rhetorically asserts that quality, not rating is what ultimately matters (a point I agree with) and then immediately, in a series of heavily-punctuated but related breaths, entreats Hollywood to make R-rated films.

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