The Directors Guild of America and Judd Apatow have raised an objection to Sony Pictures Home Entertainment’s Clean Version initiative which lets viewers watch edited versions of two dozen Sony movies.
As per a report in Variety, the studio has announced that viewers who purchase a film in its original form on iTunes, Vudu, and FandangoNOW can view the broadcast TV or airline version of all these titles.
The DGA, though, has stated that Sony is violating the guild’s contract with various studios.
“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. Throughout the years, the DGA has achieved hard-fought creative rights gains protecting our members from such practices. As creators of their films, directors often dedicate years of hard work to realize their full vision, and they rightfully have a vested interest in protecting that work. We are committed to vigorously defending against the unauthorized alteration of films.”
American film producer, Judd Apatow too, has spoken out against the initiative on Twitter.
This is absolute bullshit and @sony and @SonyPictures is gonna get hell for FUCKING with our movies.Shove the clean versions up your asses! https://t.co/UhRUP0ZIlz
— Judd Apatow (@JuddApatow) June 13, 2017
“For its part, Sony has asserted that the program’s offerings are pre-existing airline or TV versions of films, which were not edited specifically for this program and are not sold separately. The clean versions are available as extra features only when a customer buys the original theatrical version from one of the select digital retailers,” the report further states.
The films that Sony has brought under the initiative include all five versions of Spider Man along with 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: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and White House Down.
Pic: Variety
