One of the longest-standing assumptions in the movie business is that an NC-17 rating is the commercial kiss of death.
But now a small distributor is set to test that theory when it releases the explicit film “L.I.E,” a drama about a wayward teenager and a pedophile.
Lot 47 Films’ distribution of “L.I.E.,” which got an NC-17 in September, will be the first release to carry that rating since the notorious flop “Showgirls” in 1995.
“The prevailing wisdom is that NC-17s don’t do business, can’t do business,” said Lot 47 president Jeff Lipsky.
“We think the problem is that all of the NC-17 films have been bad movies ‘Showgirls,’ ‘Wide Sargasso Sea,’ ‘Henry and June,'” he said.
“L.I.E.,” which got generally good notices when it premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, got the NC-17 “for two sex scenes between adults early in the film with a combined running time of 8 ½ seconds, plus two minutes of dialogue between a male pedophile and a 15-year-old boy,” Lipsky said.
Why not release “L.I.E.” unrated?
Lipsky says the United Artists Theater Circuit has agreed to play the film at several locations including its prime Union Square multiplex – but only if it carries a rating.