Director Judd Apatow has offered up his opinion of Sony’s new trial program to offer “clean” versions of some of its films as extras to people who purchase digital versions via services like iTunes and VUDU: The company can shove the whole project up its collective ass.
Apatow’s comments—reminiscent of a similar sentiment from his friend Seth Rogen, last week—are the more vulgar version of complaints that have been issued by the Directors Guild Of America. Per Variety, the DGA is protesting the inclusion of these “clean” versions—which are the same ones that are already edited for broadcast on airplanes and TV—as available downloads for digital viewing.
“Directors have the right to edit their feature films for every non-theatrical platform, plain and simple,” the DGA said, managing to make its point without any offensive or upsetting swears, Judd. “Taking a director’s edit for one platform, and then releasing it on another—without giving the director the opportunity to edit—violates our Agreement. Throughout the years, the DGA has achieved hard-fought creative rights gains protecting our members from such practices. As creators of their films, directors often dedicate years of hard work to realize their full vision, and they rightfully have a vested interest in protecting that work. We are committed to vigorously defending against the unauthorized alteration of films.”
Sony—which launched the program with 24 older movies, including Pixels, Ghostbusters, Talladega Nights, and 50 First Dates—defends the use of the previously edited versions, and says it got the individual directors’ consent for each one. It also clarified that consumers—some of whom have been known to pay third-party companies quite a bit of money for sanitized versions of popular Hollywood films—won’t be able to purchase the ”clean” versions on their own, only receive them as extras after a purchase of the original version.