ZACK & MIRI MAKE A PORNO - by a Xixax favorite

[Raikus]

From the Los Angeles Times
SCRIPTLAND

After six little words, Harvey Weinstein is sold
By Jay A. Fernandez
Special to The Times

June 6, 2007

It's rarely a good idea to greenlight a movie off of a title alone (unless it includes the words "Pirates" and "Caribbean"). That's like falling in love with a MySpace photo.

But when Harvey Weinstein pulled the trigger on the latest raunchy comedy idea from "Dogma" and "Clerks II" writer-director Kevin Smith after Smith had written only six words of it, Weinstein's $15 million looked like a pretty good bet.

The title? "Zack and Miri Make a Porno."

For a certain stripe of moviegoer, that's a sure thing.

"A bawdy sex comedy with heart," as Smith describes the just-completed script, "Zack and Miri" is about two friends who have managed to trudge into their 30s with a satisfying lack of accomplishment. But a 15-year high school reunion and dire rent problems spark the novel moneymaking idea of pulling together an amateur porn enterprise. As for where it goes from there, just think of Smith's characteristic sexual verbosity finally coupled with matching imagery.

"It's ... dirty, with nudity," says Smith. "But funny nudity, not gratuitous nudity." Well, leave it to Smith to choose a plotline that kneecaps the issue entirely. (The civilians-making-a-blue-movie conceit also drove the narrative of writer-director Michael Traeger's "The Amateurs," which played festivals last year.) Because the story unfolds during a snowy Minnesota winter, Smith plans to film "Zack and Miri" there in February (although, Smith jokes, global warming may force him to shoot at one of the poles).

In the intervening months, Smith is publishing a book of reprinted blog entries from SilentBobSpeaks.com called "My Boring Ass Life." And he hopes to squeeze in filming of his low-budget ($3 million) horror script, "Red State," by the end of the year. Smith is aiming to give the politically charged screenplay, about outsiders who stumble into "fundamentalism gone to the extreme" in Middle America, a naturalistic, drive-in feel.

"Horror is more than a dude with a chain saw," says Smith, who engaged the Christian right promotional machine for the release of "Dogma." Given his rabid fan base, Smith is keeping the screenplay on lockdown at his Hollywood Hills home, so agents, actors and executives have needed a personal invitation to see it. Rosario Dawson, a "Clerks II" star, is supposed to give it a read this week.

After her vampy turns in "Sin City" and "Grindhouse," it sounds like a perfect trilogy.

[MacGuffin]

Seth Rogen set to 'Make a Porno'
'Knocked Up' star cast in Kevin Smith film
Source: Variety

Seth Rogen has inked to play the titular Zack in writer-director Kevin Smith's "Zack & Miri Make a Porno" for the Weinstein Co. and Dimension Films. Elizabeth Banks will star opposite Rogen as Miri.

Film reunites the pair, who appeared together in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin."

Story revolves around two lifelong platonic friends who are deep in debt and enlist the help of their friends to make a porn pic for some quick cash. But Zack and Miri realize that they may have more feelings for each other than they previously thought.

Scott Mosier is producing. Shooting is scheduled to begin in January in Pittsburgh.

Film marks the seventh time Smith has collaborated with Bob and Harvey Weinstein -- a relationship that began 13 years ago with "Clerks."

Rogen's recent credits include "Knocked Up" and "Superbad." Banks recently appeared in "Invincible."

[modage]

odd.  i don't think he can redeem kevin smith, but its noble of him to try.  i wonder how his improving constantly will sit with kevin's very specific dialogue or if there will be major beef.

[MacGuffin]

Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks Are Ideal 'Porno' Stars, Says Kevin Smith
'It's very, very raunchy but with a sweet twist to it,' Rogen says of Smith's upcoming 'Zack and Miri Make a Porno.'
Source: MTV

The recent announcement that Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks are set to join Kevin Smith's "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" may give us at MTV one more reason to count our blessings — just one week after we named Rogen the actor we're most thankful for in 2007.

OK, make that two reasons.

"You might see my ass again," Rogen joked of his role as Zack in the upcoming Smith comedy, which centers on a pair of twentysomethings who decide to shoot an amateur porn film to make money. "Am I working up to [frontal nudity]? I don't know."

"We definitely have a shot [like that] in this movie," Smith laughed. "It's not his, but if he wants to try to upstage what we'll see onscreen, that'd be awesome!"

It's all laughs these days for Smith now that he's landed two fast-rising stars for the roles of Zack and Miri. Rogen's casting in particular is especially gratifying, the director admitted, considering he wrote the titular role specifically for the "Knocked Up" star — and then spent an entire summer worried he wouldn't get him.

"After 'Knocked Up' came out, I was like, 'Ugh, he's on to bigger and better things,' " Smith said of Rogen's rise to fame. "I figured we were kind of dead in the water, but patience and perseverance prevailed, and he came onboard. It was stunning but wonderful.

"From the moment that dude started talking in '40-Year-Old Virgin' about watching a horse show, I was like, 'Oh, this guy's fantastic,' " Smith continued, gushing. "I just loved his delivery. [I thought] he would fit in the world of what we do very well."

For Rogen, fresh off his very successful summer, entering Smith's View Askewniverse seemed a natural transition.

"I feel like my strengths were always kind of ripping off a Kevin Smith movie anyway. It's not a far departure," Rogen said. "I read it and I loved it. It's very, very raunchy but with a sweet twist to it. It's very much in the style of the movies we've been doing but brought to a whole new level of filth. It's just a really great script."

While Smith hounded Rogen, Banks (another "40-Year-Old Virgin" scene-stealer) came to the project only after Rosario Dawson, for whom the director originally wrote the role of Miri, backed out of the project to film "Eagle Eye" for producer Steven Spielberg. But Smith couldn't be happier with how the casting turned out.

"If Rosario had stayed in, I wouldn't have thought past her, but when she took the Spielberg movie, suddenly it was like, 'All right, where do we go?' " Smith recalled of what led him to Banks. "That kind of left us wide open and, oddly enough, casting Banks turned out to be this insanely genius move. I haven't seen one negative reaction to it. Online, people are going, 'Yes, finally she's getting a role like this.' "

According to Smith, it's not hard to see why.

"If you see her stuff with David Wain and the 'Stella' guys, if you've seen her in 'Wet Hot American Summer,' you know she's f---ing funny," Smith said. "It's not very often that you find a woman who's as pretty as Elizabeth who can also be funny and just kind of take the piss out of herself."

As a lecturer, blogger and frequent interview subject, Smith is known for being remarkably candid and open about his upcoming projects. But now that he's got his two principal stars for "Zack and Miri," the director told MTV News that he's ready to clam up a little, momentarily falling short of fan expectations — so he can subvert them later.

"What's kind of daunting about the flick is because of the title, people know more about it already than they have about most of the stuff I've done in the past — or at least think they do," Smith said. "They have a movie in their head, but the one in my head is probably different than theirs. I mean, can you believe there's not one fluffer joke in the entire movie?"

One of the additional burdens of including "Make a Porno" in the title of a movie, Smith laughed, is the characters who suddenly come to his aid, claiming expertise.

"There have been a lot of people who have come out of the woodwork from the adult-film industry to offer their help," Smith said. "But the movie's not really about the adult-film industry. Yes, the word 'porno' is in the title and, yes, they are trying to make a porno — but these are rank amateurs."

"I did my research for that with 'Clerks,' " Smith added, so don't expect him to do any additional studying.

"When you're married, you don't take that call," he deadpanned. "You're already pushing it when you tell your wife it's called 'Zack and Miri Make a Porno.' "

Smith, Rogen and Banks start making their "Porno" January 16.

[MacGuffin]

More sign on to 'Make a Porno'

"The Office's" Craig Robinson and former porn star Traci Lords have joined Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks and Jason Mewes in Kevin Smith's "Zack & Miri Make a Porno."

Ricky Mabe (ABC Family's "Beautiful People"), Jeff Anderson ("Clerks II") and Katie Morgan (HBO's "Katie Morgan: A Porn Star Revealed") have also joined the film, which is being produced through The Weinstein Co. and Dimension Films. Production is set to begin Wednesday.

The story centers around two lifelong friends -- Zack and Miri -- who after finding themselves deep in debt enlist their friends to make a pornographic movie with the goal of earning some quick cash.

Michael Cole and Carla Gardini are overseeing the project for TWC and Dimension Films.

[©brad]

when i was 17 i wrote a short script about a debt-ridden single mom/waitress who had no other choice but to do a sleazy porno for some much needed bill money. it's one of those stupid concepts you only find in bad novels and first screenplays... and kevin smith movies. 

[grand theft sparrow]

it's one of those stupid concepts you only find in bad novels and first screenplays 

I wrote something like that too when I was about 19 or 20.  I think my guy wanted to pay for his wedding by shooting a porno but I stopped when Orgazmo came out.  I wonder how many of us have written porn-based scripts in our time. 

[pete]

I haven't but I know someone who has~~
it was a first year film school lebowski meets bicycle thief porn making movie.

[MacGuffin]

Trailer here.

[hedwig]

somebody watch that for me. thanks in advance.

[cinemanarchist]

somebody watch that for me. thanks in advance.

I took one for the team. No actual footage from the film, just Rogen and Banks casting for their porno. Really weirdly lit...talk of bleached assholes and the shape of someone's shit...Good to have you back Kevin.

[MacGuffin]

Kevin Smith's 'Porno' gets R rating
Filmmaker wins appeal to drop NC-17 designation
Associated Press

Filmmaker Kevin Smith has won an appeal to gain an R rating for his comedy "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," which previously had received an NC-17 adults-only designation.

Elizabeth Kaltman, spokeswoman for the Motion Picture Association of America, said Tuesday the rating was revised after the group's appeals board viewed the movie.

The NC-17 rating would have prohibited anyone younger than 17 from seeing the movie. With an R rating, those under 17 can see it in the company of an adult.

"Zack and Miri," due out Oct. 31 from the Weinstein Co., stars Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks as best friends and roommates who try to make a homemade porn flick to dig themselves out of debt.

[modage]

TRAILER: http://www.askmen.com/video/2008_apr/apr02.html

I CAN'T BELIEVE IT. this looks like it might actually be good. 

[cinemanarchist]

I CAN'T BELIEVE IT. this looks like it might actually be good. 

Agreed. I laughed during a Kevin Smith trailer...this has thrown my whole day for a loop.

[w/o horse]

Except I wish that part of his journey toward rejuvenation involved leaving behind the Star Wars jokes, personally, and if Star Wars becomes some serious plot point or crux I'm going to walk out.

Personally.  I actually really like Kevin Smith.  It's serious Star Wars fans I have an unfortunately low tolerance for.  And while I can be peaceful with them in real life the idea of serious Star Wars fans playing people who are serious Star Wars fans reenacting Star Wars scenes in sexual parody might exceed my limit.  You see otherwise it'll be like watching a movie made by a group of friends who are making private in-jokes about something which you have no knowledge but they find hilarious.  That's kind of the trajectory Smith's films have gone in, generally, and I hope for the Smith who made films for himself and not for his fanbase.  The trailer sort of catered to the same ViewAskew audience.

But it's only a trailer.  Maybe that's the complete total of all Star Wars jokes made in the movie.