Underrated Kevin Smith Movie Is Leaving Netflix

Kevin Smith’s 2008 comedy Zack and Miri Make a Porno left Netflix on Monday, but there’s good news: you can actually watch it for free on Tubi TV or “free with ads” on Amazon Prime. The movie, which was the filmmaker’s next movie after Clerks II, centers on a pair of 20-somethings who have been lifelong friends and decide to make an adult movie together to pay down their insurmountable debt. Along the way, the two discover that they have feelings for one another, something that threatens to bring the commercial side of their relationship crashing down around them and the friends they talked into helping them.

The movie earned almost $50 million at the box office. That’s not a bad number for a Kevin Smith movie — but the expectations were incredibly high following on the heels of some sex comedies becoming huge box office hits in the years before. Smith has long characterized its performance as being a huge disappointment, referring to the movie as a box office bomb and describing the depression he experienced when the opening weekend numbers started coming in.

Earlier this year, Smith told me that he had decided he wouldn’t record a commentary track for Zack and Miri as a result of the disappointment. Specifically, it was after listening to the commentary track on the DVD for another box office bomb-turned-cult classic, Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan’s Josie and the Pussycats. 

“We watched Josie and the Pussycats on DVD on a plane [with filmmaker Malcolm Ingram],” Smith said. “Malcom and I are on the plane, and Malcolm knows Breckin Meyer, because we made a movie with him called Tail Lights Fade years ago. So, we were watching it because Malcolm hadn’t seen it, but Malcolm is a gossipy hen, so since the movie had not been successful at the box office, Malcolm wanted to listen to the commentary track, because he was like, ‘What the hell were they thinking?,’ he said. So, we watched the movie with the commentary track on it for the flight from the East Coast to the West Coast, and I remember they said that they recorded the commentary track after the movie came out. I think it was that Monday morning, or something like that. So, they were so down during the commentary track, so sad, and kind of like ‘Yeah, we thought this was going to be good, but whatever, this next scene…’ So when Zack and Miri Make a Porno came out, I didn’t record the commentary track before the box office results, and then they asked me to record a commentary track after the movie had opened to like $10 million. I was already kind of chapped-ass over the fact that they had kind of dropped the ball on [marketing] the movie. So all I could think about was the Josie and the Pussycats commentary track, and how I would probably sound sad and/or bitter – which they didn’t; they didn’t sound bitter, they just sounded sad. But I know me, and I know that I might sound sad, but more bitter, that the movie didn’t do what it was supposed to. Like, ‘I held up my end of the bargain, they didn’t hold up theirs.’ So rather than record a commentary track that marked the moment as a sad moment, I just didn’t record a commentary track for the Zack and Miri DVD, and I always cite the Josie and the Pussycats DVD director’s commentary track as the reason.”

You can see the official synopsis below.

Lifelong friends and now roommates, Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) are buried under a mountain of debt. When the electricity is turned off, they realize that desperate times call for desperate measures. They decide to make an adult film to raise some cash. Though they swear that having sex will not damage their friendship, their business proposition quickly turns into something much more.