Young People Fucking arrived in 36 theaters on June 13 awash in controversy – and Maple Pictures wouldn’t have had it any other way.

‘It’s rare for a controversy not to help the box office,’ Maple SVP of theatrical John Bain tells Playback.  

The comedy went on to earn $110,000 in its opening weekend, for a respectable per-screen average of $3,000 – despite being up against Universal Pictures’ The Incredible Hulk. The debut feature by Vancouver director Martin Gero – and the spark that reportedly lit the federal government’s Bill C-10 fuse – played in all major cities, while Montreal, Sherbrooke and Quebec City had both English and French prints.

‘It’s often a problem to raise awareness for a Canadian film…but this one sold itself,’ notes Bain, though, on the flip side, the distributor had to ‘overcome’ the title. Described as ‘a sex comedy for people with experience,’ the film follows five couples in different and complex stages of their relationships. The ensemble cast includes Aaron Abrams (who co-wrote the script with Gero), Callum Blue (The Tudors) and Kristin Booth (MVP).

Maple readied a variety of posters and trailers, depending on the media outlet. And while the distrib says it encountered virtually no problems in print, things got ‘sticky’ on the television side with Telecaster, the industry body that vets TV ads.

‘Telecaster had some issues with our TV ads and wouldn’t air them at all, even though we were quite prepared to show them post-11 p.m.,’ says Bain, noting that the trailers contained no nudity or profanities, just funny sexual situations.

‘We were a little surprised,’ he adds. Bain says the company felt that a double standard was at work involving ads for violent or scary films and those that have sexual content. ‘We’ve released some horror films with provocative ads and were able to run them,’ he points out.

The distributor instead decided to run a review-driven spot with mostly text and the word ‘fucking’ fuzzed out.

‘We couldn’t even put asterisks – they wanted none of that,’ says Bain. Meanwhile, posters were cleverly designed to have the ‘uck’ fall out of the title and lie at the bottom of the poster.

Young People is rated 18A in most jurisdictions. The film will be released in late July or August in the U.S. through California-based Blowtorch Entertainment, which specializes in distributing content to the young-adult market. ThinkFilm will handle DVD and TV sales.

‘[Blowtorch] has a great release plan for the film that involves a unique Internet push,’ says Young People producer Steve Hoban of Copperheart Entertainment, adding, ‘It will be very focused.’