Smosh: The Movie (lost R-rated cut of YouTube comedy film; 2015)
This article has been tagged as Needing work due to its lack of concrete references.
The film's theatrical poster
Status: Lost
On July 22nd, 2015, the popular comedic YouTube channel, Smosh, released the film SMOSH: The MOVIE! which starred Smosh's founders, Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla. Upon release, the film was critically panned due to Smosh having little input on the filmmaking process and an amount of "low-brow" humor. However, what many do not know is that the final version of the film was not the rendition that Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox had initially imagined.
Originally, the film was given an R rating by the MPAA due to the heavy amount of sexual and foul-mouthed content that exceeded the standards of what the MPAA would deem suitable for the PG-13 rating. Studies have shown that out of all the ratings PG-13 performs the best, [1] which caused the film to be heavily edited.
The studio that Anthony and Ian were working with were stricken with the news of this and knew that something had to be done for the film to break even at the box office. So the studio, in a panic, decided to cut huge chunks of the film in favor of making it PG-13. The scenes in the Rated R cut are lost as well as the entirety of the original cut of the film.
This is would later be confirmed in an episode of the Cold Ones podcast featuring Ian in which he discusses SMOSH: The MOVIE! and walks through its process of being made.[2]
No scenes from the R-rated cut of the film have been released, and it is unknown if the original version in its entirety will ever be released to the public.