Zoe Kravitz has revealed why the original title of her directorial debut required a rethink.
For years, Kravitz, 35, worked on Blink Twice under the original title P—y Island, however she changed the upcoming film’s title after learning that “women were offended” by the word ’p—y.’
“It was made very clear to me that ‘p—y’ is a word that we, our society, are not ready to embrace yet,” she told Entertainment Weekly in an interview published on Tuesday, July 9. “There were a lot of roadblocks along the way, whether it be the MPAA not wanting to put it on a poster, or a billboard, or a kiosk; movie theaters not wanting to put it on a ticket.”
While Kravitz, who is engaged to Channing Tatum, one of the film’s stars, was initially reluctant to change the film’s title, she eventually realized her intended audience would ultimately disapprove.
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“Interestingly enough, after researching it, women were offended by the word, and women seeing the title were saying, ‘I don’t want to see that movie,’ which is part of the reason I wanted to try and use the word, which is trying to reclaim the word, and not make it something that we’re so uncomfortable using,” Kravitz said. “But we’re not there yet.”
The Big Little Lies star added that she felt a “responsibility” to push her personal values aside as she transitioned from being in front of the camera to behind it. “I care about people seeing the film, and I care about how it makes people feel,” Kravitz said.
Blink Twice, which hits theaters on August 23, was written in 2017 by Kravitz and E.T. Feigenbaum, and stars Naomi Ackie as Frida, a cocktail waitress invited to a seemingly nonstop island party by a billionaire tech mogul, played by Tatum, 43.
Frida quickly learns that not everything is as it seems after her best friend Jess, played by Alia Shawkat, disappears from the island and nobody can recall even meeting her.
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Kravitz also told the outlet that while she is happy with the film’s new title, she still stands by the power of its working title.
“P—y Island was the first thing I wrote down when I wrote this movie, and it’s the seed of the film, and the spirit of what that means to me is still alive and very much present in the film,” she said. “And I love the new title. I think everything happens for a reason, and I think it actually really focuses the movie in a great way. And I think that was always the way it was meant to be.”
A trailer for the film, which also stars Kyle MacLachlan, Haley Joel Osment, Gina Davis, Adria Arjona, Christian Slater and Simon Rex, dropped on April 23.
