Were you pumped for the unrated DVD of “The 40 Year-Old Virgin”? After all, as it says on the cover, “with additional footage too bold for theaters,” the raunchy comedy “now packs even more outrageous comedy!”
That footage also made the “unrated” version more likely to fly off the shelves than its R-rated counterpart when the two editions came out last week.
More Top Picks Best Drywall Panel Lifts For Ceiling Installation
“The 40 Year-Old Virgin” is just one of a dozen new DVDs that are available in unrated as well as rated versions. But such unrated discs increasingly are more of a marketing ploy than an artistic statement by the filmmakers.
And why not?
“Unrated versions outsell the rated versions when they are released at the same time and by big margins,” said Judith McCourt, director of research for Home Media Research.
The trend goes back to 1999, when “American Pie” was the first film to come out in two versions at once. At the Star Tribune’s request, she compared 14 DVDs released simultaneously in rated and unrated editions since then. Unrated versions outsold the other by more than 2 to 1.
“Unrated versions play to the curiosity factor that is innate within most of us,” McCourt explained, adding that seeing new footage not shown in theaters is just the push that some consumers need to buy a DVD.
Hollywood certainly knows that.
Besides “The 40 Year-Old Virgin,” other new DVDs available in unrated versions include “The Dukes of Hazzard,” the Anne Hathaway teen drama “Havoc” and the “American Pie” follow-up, “Band Camp” (coming Monday) — all of which add sex- and nudity-related footage of varying amounts. “Havoc” and “Band Camp” are DVD-only releases that never played in theaters, yet they are also out in R-rated versions.
For proof that many of the new unrated DVDs are marketing-driven, consider Tuesday’s releases of the fright films “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” and “Cry Wolf.” The PG-13 films add footage to their unrated DVDs that would merit a rating of, well, PG-13 — or milder. But by adding even relatively tame scenes, the studio can label the revamped film as being unrated, which is a draw to horror fans. (See the extra violence and gore of the recent unrated DVD of Rob Zombie’s “The Devil’s Rejects” as a real example.)
“Cry Wolf” director Jeff Wadlow said before his film came out in theaters that he intended to make a PG-13 teen slasher flick all along. Even so, he told the fan Web site Pit of Horror (www.pitofhorror.com) in mid-September, he expected an unrated DVD to be released.
“It’s become more of a marketing ploy than anything,” he said. “But if you rent that unrated DVD and you expect to see like lots of exploitative gore, nudity and swearing, you’re not going to see it because I didn’t shoot it.”
Some unrated DVDs actually are released for artistic reasons. They usually come out well after their rated counterparts — such as new releases of Robert Rodriguez’s violent crime anthology “Sin City,” the 2000 crime drama “The Yards” and Peter Jackson’s 1996 horror-comedy “The Frighteners” — and the directors are more forthcoming about the justification for the revamped edition.
“On this disc, you’ll find the full cuts of the `Sin City’ stories, including the scenes and footage not included in the theatrical version,” Rodriguez says on his two-disc set, which includes the theatrical and unrated cuts of “Sin City.” “But instead of sandwiching the stories together, we kept the stories separate so you could watch them the way you’d read Frank’s books, by choosing your own order.”
Unrated DVDs aren’t going away anytime soon, either. Scheduled releases include the horror films “Dark Water” (Monday) and “The Fog” remake (Jan. 14), and the comedies “Dumb and Dumber” and “Wedding Crashers” (both Jan. 3).