After crossing over from pornography into legitimate acting in Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience, Sasha Grey is now signed on to star alongside Michelle Rodriguez, Danny Trejo and Eric Roberts in a new film titled Skinny Dip. Again, this will not be an adult film. All that's known now is that it's a revenge story involving a young woman and a policeman that will be produced by Trejo's son. But the salacious title got me thinking: Could some sort of adult film/mainstream crossover finally create enough demand to catapult NC-17 films into the mainstream?
The NC-17 rating has more or less been a kiss of death ever since it's creation. Major theaters won't book the films, many mainstream media outlets won't advertise them, and thus the rating carries negative, inexplicably taboo connotations among audiences. Horror movies have tried to fight it and failed. Soon, Blue Valentine will go to bat for prestige pics, which haven't fared so well in the past.
So, since it's a slow news day, let's get completely hypothetical with Skinny Dip and how the right movie with this package might help stage an NC-17 coup. The ensemble itself so far is enough to raise some eyebrows. Machete's disappointing opening aside, Trejo seems to have goodwill from the public now. Eric Roberts has a huge cult following and Michelle Rodriguez obviously has a built in fan-base.
Now add a porn star-turned-actress who is not at all shy about her beginnings and a titillating title. If whoever is marketing this thing plays their cards right, Skinny Dip could be a prime candidate for Snakes on a Plane levels of hype. (And hey, if the movie is good enough, maybe it won't face Snakes on a Plane levels of box office return.) Then, with buzz about the film -- say, as a Wild Things for the new millennium -- reaching a fever pitch, the film makes good on its potential and gets slapped with an NC-17 rating. And the press goes wild. Would theaters really stand by their moral standards with a $30 million-plus opening weekend at stake?
The film in question doesn't have to be Skinny Dip (and again, besides the title and cast, almost nothing is known about this movie), it could work for any movie that merges audience friendly erotica with star power, a high-concept plot and savvy marketing. And since the adult-film industry is getting bled dry by the Internet right now, it seems like a great time for them to explore new partnerships. Granted, even if this idea or something like it worked and an NC-17 movie opened on top at the box office, it wouldn't immediately open the floodgates for more challenging and artistic explicit films. And if the crossover between adult film and mainstream film went too far, we may end up with the same problem the X-rating faced, where soft-core trash dominates the rating and films with artistic merit get lumped in with those.
But after 20 years and little headway on this problematic rating, something has to give. And whatever it is, it will depend on audience demand.