SALT LAKE CITY — Copies of a movie aimed at a Mormon audience have been pulled from store shelves after a recording mix-up left buyers watching “Adored: Diary of a Porn Star” instead of the squeaky clean “Sons of Provo.”
Two Utah families caught the problem after purchasing DVDs at Deseret Book stores, which are owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The families, one in St. George and another in Riverdale, brought the problem to the attention of store clerks. The DVDs were removed from shelves.
“We’re not going to play around with that, so we pulled them all,” said Gail Halladay, a Deseret Book spokesman. “We will not put it back on our shelves until we’re 100 percent sure it’s the proper disc that goes into the packaging.”
In response to the mix-up, HaleStorm Entertainment, the company that produced “Sons of Provo,” has announced its commitment to fight the spread of pornography.
The company is offering $100 to the owner of every “Sons of Provo” DVD that instead contains “Adored: Diary of a Porn Star,” as an incentive to collect all the mixed-up copies. It’s also going to donate $100 per DVD to CP80, an anti-pornography group.
The PG-rated “Sons of Provo” chronicles the life of an LDS boy band, Everclean, on its relative journey to stardom.
“Adored: Diary of a Porn Star” is an unrated independent film that is not pornographic, said Corey Eubanks, spokesman for Wolfe Video, the largest distributor of films featuring gay and lesbian characters and stories. However, the film does contain sexual situations and its subject is the life of a gay porn star.
“It’s a very heartwarming film about a porn star that reconnects with his family,” Eubanks said. “It’s not a porn film at all. It’s just about someone who is a porn actor.”
Both films hired the same Los Angeles company to make DVD copies of their movies. Somewhere in the process “Adored” discs were packaged as “Sons of Provo” discs.
George Dayton of HaleStorm Entertainment said company policy is not to work with companies that distribute pornographic films.
However, attorneys for HaleStorm and the distribution company are arguing over whether “Adored” is pornographic.
“This is hugely damaging,” Dayton said. “We don’t want our consumers to associate anything with us, whether it’s some soft-core title or whatever, I don’t know. But certainly this title doesn’t lend itself to good, clean family or LDS-centered entertainment.”
Anyone who has a copy of “Sons of Provo” that instead contains “Adored: Diary of a Porn Star” can contact HaleStorm at [email protected] for instructions on how to return the DVD and collect the $100.