I really don't even want to guess what the Winans' intentions were. I have to think that they probably did want to make a profit from it, the larger the better. Sure.
But I'm also in no hurry to assume that they were fooling themselves into thinking they were making something that was going to stand shoulder to shoulder with 200,000,000 million dollar bockbusters made by Hollywood.
I also do not want to assume that their priority was to make a child friendly movie. In fact, the evidence seems to suggest otherwise. If they were smart enough to make the movie that they made, then they were probably smart enough to realize, hey, by putting in and keeping in the adult language we're aiming for an adult as well as a more limited, in numbers, audience. Is that wrong?
Mad Hatter, you seem to be working on the assumption that it's always best to make potentially child friendly films child friendly. I guess the assumption is that everyone should want to maximize the size of and the age spectrum of the movies that they make. But I will say that that's Hollywood Think. But what about us adults who would like and appreciate maybe even just a few adult stories made once and a while for adults? Well, Josh L has already addressed that very well by analogy and illustration.
It reminds me of the
King's Speech. I was actually going to boycott even viewing the damn thing if they had decided to not produce any home video copies with the naughty profanity left intact, it irked me so. Hey, if there are copies out there with a child friendly cut as well as an adult friendly cut, that's cool, that's all good. That's understandable. "Dumb" isn't exactly the right word, I know, but I'm definately an opponent of dumbing everthing and anything down to the
level of a child. There was no sex in
Ink, but there was certainly violence. In any case, why should that necessarily mean that the story isn't meant to be a story for adults?
The question is, was it the priority of the Winans' or their investors to maximize profits and therefore to go with a "family friendly" cut of their film like Hollywood would have done? Or, were they independent and independently minded filmmakers who consciously wanted and chose to make a movie for adults with mature content? Was it more about artistic and intellectual integrity and voice, or was it more about making a return and a profit? No doubt they hoped for both. For the record, I myself may have decided to jettison the profanity in that film had it been up to me. I'm not sure. But I'm also not inclined to call their not doing so "stupid."
I don't want to knock them for the ambitiousness of their film. They could have been waiting around a lifetime for that 200 million dollar budget...and maybe two or three or a dozen lifetimes. And Death is on all of our doorsteps. The hour probably
is later than you think. Of course, I hope not for all of us good people here, but, you know. I like to think that they got
Ink made and who knows, maybe it will help to show the right people that they are quite capable of stretching, squeezing every dollar out of a budget. I have to think that that's a pretty nice skill set to be able to put on your business card. So, I hope that
Ink helps them to get bigger budgets.
Josh, I really like your assessment. You know, thinking about
Ink, and don't worry, I'm not trying to say
Ink puts them in his league...yet; but I have to say that
Ink reminds me a bit of Terry Gilliam's stuff. Oh yeah, that's right, I said it.