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Age-restricted ‘Kick-Ass’ Trailer Leaks

February 24, 2010 by Robert Marich Leave a Comment

Kick-Ass 2 poster

The “Kick-Ass” movie trailer landed on websites viewed by inappropriately young audiences.

Independent film distributors tend to push the decency envelope and a “New York Times” articles says that’s just what’s happening with Lions Gate Films’ audience-restricted trailer for R-rated “Kick-Ass.”   

“A trailer for the forthcoming film ‘Kick-Ass’ that depicts (a 11-year-old girl character named Hit Girl) wielding a gun and using highly, highly profane language is igniting debate about how Hollywood advertises its R-rated films on the Web,” says the article by Brooks Barnes. The movie is about a boy who wants to become a super hero that opens April 16.

The trailer classified as “red band”–to play only in cinema auditoriums with R-rated films so it isn’t seen by inappropriately young audiences. But the “New York Times” article says the trailer ends up on social websites where kids can see it. 

“The problem is that the raunchy trailers pop up on sites without age restrictions almost instantaneously,” says the “New York Times” article, which adds Lions Gate seems to have complied with R-rating restrictions. Websites getting the trailer are age-restricted.

But “fans copy them to their own blogs and Facebook profiles and post them outside of YouTube’s so-called age gates,” says the article. “All movie trailers go viral, but the red-band ones speed across the Internet with an added velocity because of their ‘can you believe what they just said’ nature.”

Related content:

  • Cat and Mouse for Trashy Trailer
  • ’Kick-Ass’ Red-band Trailer: Teen Violence Now with More Swear Words

Filed Under: creative, digital marketing, independents Tagged With: controversy, demographics, movie trailers, regulations, windows

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