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But it worked for the director of Showgirls and he didn't make cuts, so why wouldn't a big director nowadays do it? Tarantino could have gotten away with it with Kill Bill, after his huge Pulp Fiction status, especially since Tarantino is bigger than Verhoeven.
Back then there was a secondary market called Blockbuster that also wouldn't carry it, which just before free porn was available made it a cult watch.
There has to be really special about the story a director wants to tell to keep in whatever the ratings board determined made a movie NC-17 instead of R.
Showgirls may have flopped in theatres but it has found new life on the home video market and it has unquestionably become a cult classic that many people consider a masterpiece of camp. It is over the top, bombastic, badly acted and badly written, but it is super entertaining and fun, in that "so bad it is good" way.
Oh okay. What if a director today like Christopher Nolan or Quentin Tarantino wanted to release an NC-17 rated movie, would the theaters be more up for it then, if it was them for example?
Probably not.
It's because of what NC-17 means. A movie gets an NC-17 reason 99.9999% of the time for one reason: Sex. Too much onscreen sex, so it gets the NC-17 rating, which kills its chances at the box office. Younger audiences cannot go see it. Even many older audiences won't because of the stigma attached to it ("It's just porn!"). And those who might be attracted can get all they want of that for free on the Internet. Why buy a ticket? The few NC-17 movies that did manage a good box office run all happened before there was an Internet connection in every home.
Even R-rated movies are becoming a harder and harder sell. Again, because young people --- who make up the lion's share of all box office receipts --- can't go. And many adults are no longer willing to pay $40+ to see a movie when they can just wait 6 weeks and buy the DVD at Target for $14.
There are exceptions, of course --- R-rated movies that are great movies that build an early buzz and score at the box office. But in my mind they are the exceptions that prove the rule: Box office releases now cater almost exclusively to the 18 and under crowd.
Well considering this movie came out in 1995, I doubt it would be NC17 if it came out today though.
Look at basic porn, what was viewed as 'hard core' in the 90s was tame, compared to 'hard core' of today, so that really means, content gets more and more depraved/sexual, but its more accepted too.
You can even go further back, to the 50s and 60s, content which was labelled 'hard core' or even porn in those days, would probably be PG13 by today's standard (if that)! The same way, what is 'hard core/porn' today will not be viewed the same in 15-20, 50, 100 yrs...in general, sexual content becomes tame and acceptable over time.
I didn't think it flopped cause it was NC-17 though, I thought it was cause it was a bad movie. Was it really cause of the rating as to why it flopped?
Horse manure rule:
Everybody involved with horse manure smells like horse manure.
Well considering this movie came out in 1995, I doubt it would be NC17 if it came out today though.
Look at basic porn, what was viewed as 'hard core' in the 90s was tame, compared to 'hard core' of today, so that really means, content gets more and more depraved/sexual, but its more accepted too.
You can even go further back, to the 50s and 60s, content which was labelled 'hard core' or even porn in those days, would probably be PG13 by today's standard (if that)! The same way, what is 'hard core/porn' today will not be viewed the same in 15-20, 50, 100 yrs...in general, sexual content becomes tame and acceptable over time.
I don't know I mean Killer Joe (2011), got an NC-17, and that had less graphic sex in compared to Showgirls. They didn't even show any actual intercourse, compared to Showgirls.
Audiences were open to it because Saved by the Bell was very popular at the time, and people wanted to see Jessie (Elizabeth Berkley) play a stripper and get naked. It's that simple.
Audiences were open to it because Saved by the Bell was very popular at the time, and people wanted to see Jessie (Elizabeth Berkley) play a stripper and get naked. It's that simple.
Pretty much this. Typically X/NC-17 films don't translate to ticket sales.
Showgirls may have flopped in theatres but it has found new life on the home video market and it has unquestionably become a cult classic that many people consider a masterpiece of camp. It is over the top, bombastic, badly acted and badly written, but it is super entertaining and fun, in that "so bad it is good" way.
It is about the worst movie made for that kind of budget but it is fun to watch knowing and expecting it to be simply awful.
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