Kevin Smith on why ‘A Couple of Dicks’ became ‘Cop Out’
The new trailer for the upcoming buddy cop comedy Cop Out just hit the internet, but anyone who had been following the project knows the film, out February 26, 2010, had long gone by a more distinctive title: A Couple of Dicks. Fortunately, the film has an even more distinctive director: Kevin Smith, the hilariously profane indie film hero (Clerks, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Zack and Miri Make a Porno) making his debut as a director of a script he did not write himself. Smith was more than happy to give EW his frank perspective on how A Couple of Dicks became Cop Out in a nutshell, blame the networks.
Kevin Smith: Look, losing A Couple of Dicks was almost akin to losing my own dick. It was a perfect buddy-cop movie comedy title. Everyone knew it. You couldnt say that title to somebody without a fing 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, well call the networks and see if were going to get any problems [with A Couple of Dicks as a title], months before the movies ever going to come out. The top 3 networks CBS, ABC, NBC said we cant run one of your spots before 9 oclock.
Im like, Well what about Inglourious Basterds? And I guess, because of the spelling, they got away with it. So we were like, Can we call it A Couple of D.I.C.s? Because thats the proper acronym for detectives, Detective In Charge. And [the networks] kicked that back as well. It was the pluralizing of any form of dick, whether it was d-i-c-k or any derivation.
So my feeling was like, its an R-rated movie, so who the f are we talking to anyway before 9 oclock? Warner Bross feeling was like, Hey man, the sports audience, dickhead. We have to advertise to the sports audience on Saturday and Sunday and all those sporting events usually take place before 9 p.m. in the evening. At which point, I was like, Oh wow, you guys are way smarter than me.
All credit due to Warner Bros., they tried really fing hard to score that title. It just came down to a point blank choice of run a campaign where youre not going to be able to advertise on the big three networks before 9 oclock, or run a campaign where there are no hindrances. I came from a world where you play the ball where it lays. [The studio execs] come from a world where theyre like, Well if we dont like where the ball lays, well just create a brand new golf green. If I hadnt gone through Zack and Miri Make a Porno, I think I would have gotten my old-school fing angry indie spirit, if you will: Fuck it, we live or die by A Couple of Dicks, 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: Ive seen the shark up close. I aint going through that hell again.
And Ive got a lot of people online, on Twitter especially, going, Dont lose this fight! Dont let them change it! And its like, Dude, its not my call. All these people online seem to think I have the almighty juice. I got no juice. I made Jersey Girl. I cant pull any fing strings.
So for months now, theyve always had A Couple of Cops as kind of this fallback thing a placeholder, essentially. And then all of a sudden, one of the producers of the movie was like, Hey theyre locking the title, because the trailer is going to be put on Sherlock Holmes. And I was like, This is an abundance of wonderful and horrible information. I want to be on Sherlock Holmes because everyone on the planet will probably go see it on Christmas, but I dont want it to be A Couple of Cops. That just seems like we didnt even try! We went from a really clever title to the least clever title of all time. I was like, God that title is going to feel like such a fing cop out. And [the producer] goes, We should just call the movie that.
I liked it because it sounds like exactly what we set out to be: An 80s buddy cop movie, without sounding like Loaded Weapon, or some such s. But more importantly, to me, the title tells the story of what happened to our other title. I think its kind of ironic. Its win-win. For 100 percent of the potential audience for this movie, I would say 0.5 percent knows that we were once called A Couple of Dicks. After they read this article, maybe you could bump it up to 0.75 percent. The rest of the potential audience, they have no idea what this movie used to be called. For them it will always be Cop Out. Theyll just never know that there was that one magical moment where it was called A Couple of Dicks. We were making up sequel titles in our heads, dude. Like, you know, Two Bigger Dicks. Or Dicks 2: It Just Got Harder.
Somebody online said you could take Cop Out and vary it with like, Rock out with your Cop Out! Hopefully that will be a tagline on a poster or a trailer. And if it is, we owe that random dude on Twitter like at least a few free passes.
