The MPAA banned it. The City of Philadelphia blocked even a modified version from its transit shelters. Yet the poster for Kevin Smith’s upcoming comedy Zack and Miri Make a Porno that had heads spinning south of the border is creating no such stir up here. The film stars Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks as impoverished roomies who discover an entrepreneurial knack for adult entertainment.

Alliance Films, which has the picture for Canada, chose to use the original artwork — a clear-but-coy image of Rogen and Banks on the receiving end of mutual stimulation. The Motion Picture Association of America banned it, leading U.S. distributor The Weinstein Company to issue a second poster featuring stick figures.

The Weinstein Company, which is handling the film internationally, tells Playback Daily that the poster seen in Canada will be the primary poster abroad. The film opens in the U.S. and Canada Oct. 31.

Asked if Alliance had any qualms about using the image in a national campaign, VP of publicity and promotion Carrie Wolfe says, ‘It never occurred to us. The poster came up; we liked it a lot.’

She says the controversy in the U.S. erupted after-the-fact, noting, ‘Canada tends to be bit more liberal [than the U.S.] on the whole.’

The poster is nearing the end of a four-week ‘flight’ on the Toronto Transit Commission. Spokesperson Anastassia Bouktsis says she is not aware of any complaints, though the poster was flagged as potentially controversial and vetted by an advertising committee.

Michele Erskine — director of marketing for CBS Outdoor Canada, the ad sales agency for the TTC — adds that she has not heard of any complaints across the country. ‘We err on the side of caution,’ she says.

According to a report from the Associated Press, in some U.S. jurisdictions the stick figures combined with the word ‘porno’ caused nearly as much upset as the original version of the poster. A child psychologist in Boston said impressionable minds might infer from the stick figures that pornography is an acceptable career choice.

As for the film itself, Smith successfully appealed the MPAA’s initial NC-17 rating, a designation that seriously undermines marketing campaigns in the U.S. Thanks to changes in the MPAA appeal process, filmmakers can use precedents from previous MPAA decisions to argue their case. Smith provided examples of similar moments in other films to help win his film an R rating. Zack and Miri is rated 18A in Ontario.