The King's Speech may get post-Oscar family tweak

Jan 26, 2011, 21:49 GMT

Los Angeles - Oscar front-runner The King's Speech could be tweaked to edit out multiple profanities and make it suitable for family audiences, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

Executive producer Harvey Weinstein is hoping that the move will allow the film to secure a lower rating and increase its box office success. Currently the film features some coarse language that according to US ratings rules restrict its audiences to people over the age of 17.

Even with that limitation, the 13-million-dollar film has still managed to rack up almost 60 million dollars in US ticket receipts. But Weinstein wants to be able to exploit a surge in interest if the film wins big at the Academy Awards next month, and is talking with director Tom Hooper about editing out the offending language, the report said.

Weinstein is already aggressively riding the wave of publicity generated by the film's leading 12 Oscar nominations and is expanding the film to 2,500 theatres this weekend from its current tally of 1,680. In three weeks the theatrical count is set to expand to 3,000 screens, the report said.

In Britain, where the film has a 12-and-over rating, The King's Speech has been top of the box office for three weeks, beating out big budget films like The Green Hornet and Gulliver's Travels.

'The British numbers are huge because the rating lets families see the movie together,' said Weinstein. 'Tom and I are trying to find a unique way to do this that keeps his vision of the movie.'