Kevin Smith’s forthcoming project for 2010 is a buddy picture about two veteran cops (Bruce Willis & Tracy Morgan) on the hunt for a stolen vintage baseball card. The title, A Couple of Dicks, pretty much says it all. Or rather it did until it wasn’t the title any more. Although Smith denies it, Variety reported that the film’s title was changed to a A Couple of Cops before principal photography even began. It’s all a moot point now, however, as the title has changed yet again, this time to the aptly self-referential Cop Out. Smith I’m sure can appreciate the irony. He’s dealt with this kind of studio conservativism before.

On Smith’s last picture, Zach and Miri Make a Porno, he ran afoul of the MPAA, who found the film’s original poster design (showing the facial reactions of Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks to oral sex) entirely too racy. Smith tried to turn this to his advantage, cooking up a stick figure design meant to suggest that the film was too sexually graphic for any kind for realistic depiction, but its success was questionable, and the film did not do great numbers at the box office. None of this, of course, speaks well of what the studios think of us, the audience. Sure, we may be able to handle a couple of “Fockers” every now and then, but we’re just plain terrified of dicks.