While Jason Perry, executive director of the Governor's Office of Economic Development, says that "content is never the sole issue" when films are turned down for state incentives, three productions rejected in part because of content contain sex, sexual references and representations of the state that locals might not appreciate:
• "Animals": The trailer available online includes several shots of people having sex and several of mutilated bodies, splashing blood and other gore.
• "National Lampoon's 301: The Legend of Awesomest Maximus Wallace Leonidas": Various Web sites describe the film as a "send-up of sword-and-sandal films" such as "300," "Troy," "Gladiator" and "Braveheart." In post-production, the movie features characters named Hottessa and King Erotic.
• "Red Canyon": The movie's Web site mentions that a pair of characters return to their family home "in the badlands of Utah" — it was shot in Caineville, Wayne County, and Goblin Valley — where they "awaken a killing rage in a town where everyone has ties that bind."
"'Red Canyon' was filmed near the longest stretch of uninhabited highway in the United States," the Web site says. "This area is a major drug trafficking corridor, and in the badlands of Utah meth-amphetamine use, violence, rape, insanity and poverty co-exist with the most incredible natural landscapes on earth. ... 'Red Canyon' explores many of the dark things that still happen in the still lawless corners of the West."
E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com