Pineapple Express poster

Posted by Chris

April 4, 2008

I keep looking at this poster for Pineapple Express that was just released and wondering how to best describe it. I’ve finally come up with the following:

It’s an attempt to best encapsulate in one image every Ice-T song ever.

Really, though, the poster does a good job of continuing the guns and pot themes setup in the trailers, both red- and green-band, that we’ve already seen for the movie. Seth Rogen and James Franco and another guy are armed, high as kites and have no clue what they’re doing, which always makes for a wacky good time.

Let’s be honest, though: You have to wonder how this got approved by the MPAA and where Sony/Columbia thinks it’s going to be able to put this. I’m fairly certain that if this had come from a smaller studio this would have been spiked by the MPAA’s ad-approval committee for just too high a density of offensive images.

And I’m fairly certain there’s no where in the world the studio will be able to hang this where they can guarantee 25 percent of the audience or whatever the required segment is won’t be under 17.

This certainly isn’t an image that can be re-purposed for use on billboards, at least not if they’re within eyeball distance of a school. No one wants to relive the 50-Cent billboard kerfluffle. And I’m guessing Sony doesn’t want to explain its advertising practices in front of the FCC, which has so far taken the “Just watch it yourselves or we’ll have to watch it for you” approach when it comes to R-rated movie marketing.

It’s a good poster that sells the movie honestly, but the imagery raises a whole hosts of concerns.