They wanted to test how NC-17 fare at the box office with Showgirls, but they failed big time! If Showgirls did well at
-
jackrabbit83 — 13 years ago(November 06, 2012 01:00 PM)
The main actress was the tall girl from Save By The Bell right?
No one wanted to see a former teen star in a movie called Showgirls.
In the doc., they made a good point about Liv Tyler
no one wanted to publicly hear her talk about sex (masturbating).
Sometimes, it is about WHO you cast in a NC-17 movie, not about the content.
Yeah I agree with you on that, but the theater owners thought differently though. They blame the NC-17 rated for Showgirls losing money! That's probably why NC-17 movies are not allowed anymore in most theaters.
It's true they should have chosen better NC-17 rated movie for test run wide release! Showgirls was horrible movie. Sadly, I think there would have been more wide release NC-17 rated movies if Showgirls did not bomb. Now everything is censored. It sucks. Oh well, I can't change back time. -
AzaleaRose — 12 years ago(April 04, 2013 05:06 PM)
The Nostalgia Chick pretty much hit the nail on the head with this when she was talking about The Host - the possibility that a movie failed simply because it was badly written is never the lesson that the studio takes from a flop.
-
Professor59 — 11 years ago(March 28, 2015 10:34 PM)
On the contrary, Showgirls wouldn't have had 100 people watch if it wasn't for the chance to see that celebrity nude. It was a pretty bad movie.
Same would have happened with Liv Tyler. It would INCREASE the audience.
It's like saying "No one wants to hear America's Sweetheart Meg Ryan screaming a fake orgasm in When Harry Met Sally." Yeah, they kinda did. -
-
Multiglobal — 12 years ago(June 02, 2013 02:50 AM)
Maybe in the very beginning. When the porn industry started plagiarizing it, the X-rated mainstream movies like A Clockwork Orange were automatically dropped to R-ratings. After that, the MPAA has used the adult film rating as a weapon to censor.
-
Mr Blue-4 — 12 years ago(April 23, 2013 01:39 PM)
It has NOTHING to do with ONE movie.
You know why NC-17 films have all this trouble?- Pretty much EVERY theater now is a multi-screen venue. So, who needs the headache of having to police one screen to make sure NO ONE under 17 gets in there, and deal with whatever crap happens when they eventually do?
- NC-17 films are NOT porn, but all these pinheads in America somehow think that it is. Blockbuster became the number one video chain, in part, by having no actual porn. Their assurance not to carry NC-17 is all about appealing to moronic parents who think whatever is NC-17 must be porn, or will corrupt their kids.
-
hodie — 12 years ago(May 10, 2013 06:17 PM)
Wasn't Requiem for a Dream NC-17? Maybe it was unrated. I rented it and it was the director's cut, I think. I thought Midnight Cowboy was rated X, and it's a classic. I remember lines around the block to see "Last Tango in Paris" and "The Night Porter".
Showgirls WAS pretty awful. Your theory may have some weight.
"Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?" -
Mr Blue-4 — 12 years ago(May 15, 2013 02:13 AM)
Wrong. "Midnight Cowboy" received its X rating in 1969 and "Last Tango In Paris" got its in 1973. The rating system as we know it began in 1968.
However, by the end of the 1970s no American studio would release an X rating to a movie. By that time- unlike 1969- it was not completely associated with pornography. In fact, "Last Tango" is a reason why mainstream movies stopped getting X ratings. It became near-impossible to convince many people it was NOT pornography. That was part of the reason for the film's success, but that thinking would poison most mainstream movies.
Add to it the restrictions on X rated movies in many theater chains and that you couldn't advertise an X rated movie the same way.
Come on guys."Showgirls" has NOTHING to do with it. -
DeRo64 — 12 years ago(October 14, 2013 05:20 AM)
I saw Showgirls, and even though it had some laughably bad parts, it didn't make me cringe at its stupidity like Scary Movie 1 & 2 did. In fact, the only part I thought was really dumb in Showgirls (besides the S&M Biker performance which was ironically also my favorite part) was when the main character pulled out a knife and said, "Chill!"
I don't have anything against Elizabeth Berkley, and I hate this idea that former stars should have to just die away.
"There is no escape, John!" -
lazarillo — 11 years ago(October 31, 2014 08:38 AM)
The OP is onto something. "Showgirls" was not an independent film or a foreign film, it was a HOLLYWOOD film. And when it bombed, Hollywood realized they are really not capable of making films like that. But this doesn't mean NO ONE is capable.
It is in the obvious interest of Hollywood though to monopolize the theaters, so they're simply not going to let independent filmmakers or foreign films take up space in "their" theaters. They can't openly forbid the theaters from showing these other films (because the collusion would be too evident), but they can make sure these films don't get an "R" rating from the MPAA and use the excuse that the audience "won't watch them". Well, maybe they would if they just rated all movies for adults "R".
Indie and foreign films really can't compete against Hollywood when comes to PG-rated, over-budgeted CGI crapfests, so these films get that many more screens even as they deliver plenty of violence to "the children" the MPAA is supposed to protect. So basically they "protect" American adults from any halfway sophisticated films with sex in them while they look the other way at violence aimed at children. It probably WOULD be different though if "Showgirls" had been a hit. They would have figured out some other way to keep the indie and foreign films out of most American theaters, but we would probably have a lot of bad "NC-17" Hollywood movies in the theaters todayor they would have dispensed with that moribund joke of that rating by now. -
JasmineFIowers — 11 years ago(January 06, 2015 04:40 AM)
I'm pretty sure R ratings (The Australian R, the top rating - not the UK system with 2 R's) have no impact on theatres showing a film in Australia. We have similar cultures, I'd say it would be the same for the UK. Ushers do wander around theatres in Australia, if they saw a kid in there they'd just pull them out I would think.