Sony Will Offer Censored Versions Of Some Movies, And Hollywood Is Furious About It

You know the unrivaled joy and thrill of watching edited, swear-word-free versions of your favorite movies on airplanes? Well, now Sony is capitalizing on that delight by putting "clean versions" of some its films up for sale—and the Directors Guild of America (DGA) is not happy about it.

Sony announced last week that they would offer voluntarily censored versions of 24 of the studio's movies, including Big Daddy, Easy A and Ghostbusters II, for free with purchases of the original, unedited versions of the films on digital services like iTunes and VUDU. The DGA is calling this move a violation of the guild's contract with major studios, arguing in a Tuesday statement, "Directors have the right to edit their feature films for every non-theatrical platform, plain and simple. 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."

Echoing the DGA's ire is writer/director Judd Apatow, who instructed Sony to "shove the clean versions up your asses!" in a gleefully profane Tweet on Tuesday.

Another unsurprising critic of Sony's "Clean Initiative" is Seth Rogen, who produced and starred in Sony’s decidedly non-PG13 animated movie “Sausage Party.”

Director Adam McKay wasn't even aware that two of his films, Step Brothers and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, were on the list until The Hollywood Reporter called him for comment, but a rep for his office assured THR, "He would not have agreed to this." Seth Rogen joined Apatow on Twitter in speaking filth to power on Twitter:

It's not hard to understand why Sony might be inclined to err on the side of censorship, since their refusal to edit Rogen and James Franco's 2014 North Korea satire The Interview led to one of the biggest hacking scandals of all time. Still, there's something to be said for artistic expression; after all, Shakespeare was considered vulgar in his time, too. And who are we to say that Sausage Party isn't this generation's Hamlet?