Kevin Smith’s upcoming buddy-cop comedy has been in the news lately due to an enforced name change. What was to be ‘A Couple of D*cks’ is now ‘Cop Out.’ And as the trailer hits the Internet, the director of ‘Clerks,’ ‘Chasing Amy’ ‘Dogma’ and ‘Zack and Miri Make a Porno’ talked to EW about his struggle with the name change and how attached he was to the original title. He was really attached.

Smith said, “losing A Couple of D*cks was almost akin to losing my own d*ck. It was a perfect buddy-cop movie comedy title. Everyone knew it. You couldn’t say that title to somebody without a f***ing smile crossing their face. But what I had gone through with Zack and Miri Make a Porno — ‘porno’ had become very problematic, it became tough for us to advertise [the film], blah blah blah. Warner Bros. decided, ‘Hey man, we’ll call the networks and see if we’re going to get any problems [with A Couple of D*cks as a title], months before the movie’s ever going to come out.” The top 3 networks — CBS, ABC, NBC — said we can’t run one of your spots before 9 o’clock.”

Smith said he suggested ‘A Couple of D.I.C.s?’ “Because that’s the proper acronym for detectives, Detective In Charge. And [the networks] kicked that back as well.”

Smith credits Warner Bros. with fighting for his title but in the end, it wasn’t worth the struggle, he says. “If I hadn’t gone through Zack and Miri Make a Porno, I think I would have gotten my old-school f***ing angry indie spirit, if you will: “F*** it, we live or die by A Couple of D*cks, or I take my name off the picture!” But even my mom was like, ‘I might go see Zack and Miri, but I would never go see Zack and Miri Make a Porno.’ I feel like Chief Brody in Jaws 2: I’ve seen the shark up close. I ain’t going through that hell again.”

(Photo by PR Photos)

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