Recently, Sony floated the idea of releasing “clean” versions of some of its naughtier films so people with sensitive eyes and ears could enjoy the storyline of, say, Captain Phillips without suffering through the part where Barkhad Abdi tells Tom Hanks that he’s “the motherfucking captain now, motherfucker.” This idea was met with some cuss-filled resistance from director Judd Apatow, who tweeted that Sony would “get hell” for “FUCKING” with people’s movies. The Directors Guild Of America also expressed its dislike for the “clean version” concept, releasing a statement about how it’s a violation of a filmmaker’s creative rights to release “unauthorized alteration of films.”
Now, Sony is walking back the “clean version” project a bit, with Variety reporting that the company has announced that it won’t sell edited versions of movies if the original filmmakers object to it. Sony says it “believed” that it has “obtained approvals” from the people who made the movies included in its clean version initiative, but it’s willing to drop movies from the program if any of them “are unhappy or have reconsidered.” This makes it the filmmakers’ responsibility to speak up if they don’t like what Sony is doing, but at least people can retain control of their work by speaking up.
The movies set to get clean versions are Spider-Man, 50 First Dates, Battle Of The Year, Big Daddy, Captain Phillips, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Easy A, Elysium, Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters II, Goosebumps, Grown Ups, Grown Ups 2, Hancock, Inferno, Moneyball, Pixels, Step Brothers, Talladega Nights, and White House Down, so you should say something if you made one of those and don’t want Sony to mess with it.