Joseph Gorden-Levitt made his directorial debut at the Sundance Film Festival with his film Don Jon’s Addiction, a story about a modern day Don Juan whose addiction to pornography leaves him unfulfilled. The romantic comedy received so much praise that it quickly found a distributor, but with one catch. Relativity Media bought the rights to the movie for $4 million, but is requiring the filmmakers to trim down some of the graphic sex scenes to avoid failure at the box office because of a NC-17 rating.
Fortunate enough, Gordon-Levitt has no problem with it (and I wouldn’t either for $4 million).
“I think it’s important that those images are in there, but what precisely you see isn’t that important,” Gordon-Levitt said. “What’s important is the rhythm of the film, the repetition of what the Don Jon character does, over and over.”
The cuts would ensure that the film gets an R rating.
Gordon-Levitt stars in the movie with co-stars Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore and Tony Danza. The director says the film is more of a love story that explores the topic of intimacy and the media’s obsession with sex in the form of an edgy comedy.
A release date for the film has yet to be confirmed.