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Sony announces Clean Version, censored cuts of its own films

The studio is set to release edited versions of the likes of Ghostbusters, Step Brothers, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and the Spider-Man films

Clarisse Loughrey
Wednesday 07 June 2017 08:24 BST
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In a market move that no one particularly wanted or asked for, Sony has announced its plans for the Clean Version initiative, via Yahoo Movies.

Essentially, all that means is that the studio is making available for download the censored and cut versions of films that are used for broadcast on televisions and airlines, with edits to remove violence, sexuality, and profanity.

The Clean Version will not feature as a separate purchase, but will instead become available at no additional charge as one of the extras included in the versions of the film purchased on iTunes, VUDU, and FandangoNOW.

The first 24 releases to be included in the scheme are: 50 First Dates, Battle Of The Year. Big Daddy. Captain Phillips, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Easy A, Elysium, Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters II, Goosebumps, Grown Ups, Grown Ups 2, Hancock, Inferno, Moneyball, Pixels, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Step Brothers, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, and White House Down.

It's a bizarre selection which puts into question who exactly the Clean Version initiative is for, considering it's unlikely there are many young children clamouring to watch Jonah Hill's Oscar-nominated turn in Moneyball, Plus, films like Pixels and Goosebumps have already been pretty perfectly engineered for their target audience.

However, the move apparently has something to do with combating third-party services like ClearPlay and VidAngel, who have already been providing unauthorised edits of films to consumers and have faced numerous legal battles in the process.

Unsurprisingly, this hasn't been particularly well-received by movie fans, with many questioning as to what exactly is left of Talladega Nights or Elysium after being so brutally censored. Seth Rogen even took to Twitter to beg, "Holy shit please don't do this to our movies. Thanks."

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