Zack and Miri Make a Porno | |
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Theatrical release poster
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Directed by | Kevin Smith |
Produced by | Scott Mosier |
Written by | Kevin Smith |
Starring | |
Music by | James L. Venable |
Cinematography | David Klein |
Edited by | Kevin Smith |
Production
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Distributed by | The Weinstein Company |
Release date
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Running time
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101 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $24 million |
Box office | $42.1 million |
Zack and Miri Make a Porno is a 2008 American romantic sex comedy film written and directed by Kevin Smith and starring Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks. It is Smith's second film (after Jersey Girl) not to be set within the View Askewniverse and his first film not set in New Jersey. It was released on October 31, 2008.
Zack Brown and Miri Linky are roommates in Monroeville, Pennsylvania (a Pittsburgh suburb). They have been friends since the first grade. Despite Miri working at the local shopping mall and Zack working at a coffee shop, they have not paid their utility bills in months, with Zack devoting much of his free time to a fanatic following of the Pittsburgh Penguins and his status in the community amateur hockey team, the Monroeville Zombies. After work on the night before Thanksgiving, their water gets turned off before they go to their high school reunion.
At the reunion, Miri attempts to seduce her attractive former classmate Bobby Long, while Zack strikes up a conversation with Brandon St. Randy, who reveals that he is a gay porn star, and Bobby's boyfriend. After returning home from the reunion, the apartment's electricity is turned off. Inspired by a successful viral video that was filmed by a pair of teenage boys as Miri changed in Zack's place of work for the reunion (revealing that she wore unattractive "granny panties" underwear), and emboldened by the cultural mainstreaming of pornographic entertainment, Zack convinces a reluctant Miri that they should make a pornographic film to earn money.
Gathering a group of acquaintances and hired help as the cast and crew, they decide to film a pornographic Star Wars parody, entitled Star Whores. Delaney, the film's producer and Zack's co-worker, rents film equipment and a building to use as a studio. When they return to the studio after the first night of filming, the building is being demolished, with all the equipment and costumes inside. They are told that the man that rented it to them had run off with the money. Later at the coffee shop where Zack works, he realizes that his boss threatened to install a hidden camera, which Zack finds and decides to use to replace their lost film equipment. Zack retools his film to take place in the coffee shop, revamping the film to one with a coffee shop motif, Swallow My Cockuccino. The group shoots the film after hours.