10 Film Directors Who Totally Tricked The Studio

6. Matt Stone & Trey Parker Derailed A PG-13 Marketing Campaign - South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut

Matt Stone and Trey Parker fought extensively with Paramount during production of South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, as the studio initially tried to convince the duo to release the film with a PG-13 rating.

Stone and Parker stuck to their R-rated guns, even if Paramount's marketing team continued to create cutesy commercials for the film which blatantly misrepresented its tone as more family-friendly.

When the filmmakers received a VHS screener of one of the trailers, they promptly snapped it in half and sent it back to Paramount.

But the pair took advantage of a prime opportunity when, some time later, Paramount commissioned the creation of a promotional South Park music video intended to air on MTV, with all the R-rated material predictably edited out and the implication once again being that the film was rated PG-13.

For some reason, Paramount sent the original master VHS of the music video to Stone and Parker for review, and Stone responded by putting the tape in the trunk of his car and driving home. This prompted the studio, who needed the tape back to send it to MTV, to threaten the duo with legal action.

Nothing came of it in the end, though, and Stone and Parker managed to avoid an apparently revolting, deceptive commercial for their movie making it on the air.

Presumably Paramount calmed down somewhat once the film grossed almost four-times its budget at the box office, made a killing on home video, and even received a Best Original Song Oscar nomination for "Blame Canada."