Cigar Weekly

Four major studios will begin including antismoking public service announcements in youth-rated DVDs of films that include tobacco use.

Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. will place public service announcements on DVDs of new releases that are rated G, PG and PG-13 under an agreement reached by California health officials, studio reps and the Entertainment Industry Foundation. The Walt Disney Co. and 20th Century Fox have made separate commitments or are in the process of making agreements for putting antismoking announcements in DVDs.

Sources say Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will announce the pact today at a press conference at the Kodak Theater. Also expected to be present are state health and human services secretary Kim Belshe, MPAA chief Dan Glickman and Lisa Paulsen, prexy-CEO of the Entertainment Industry Foundation, the latter of which has long targeted the glamorization of smoking in films.

"It is historic, the fact that all the studios want to make sure there is appropriate messaging where smoking is depicted," said Paulsen, reached by phone on Thursday. "It really helps diminish the role of the cigarette in film."

PSAs will be shown before the DVDs of such movies as "The Incredible Hulk," "21," "Leatherheads" and "American Teen," all of which have scenes of smoking. The public service announcements that will appear were made under the direction of the state's Tobacco Control Program, and the PSAs will direct viewers to the website TobaccoFreeCa.com, where they can get information on quitting.

Antismoking advocates have long lobbied Hollywood studios to curb the depictions of smoking onscreen and, in recent years, have achieved some success in at least making the industry aware of the kind of messages they are sending when characters light up. Last year, the MPAA announced that it would start taking into consideration all depictions of smoking in its ratings classifications, after limiting such judgments only to illegal teen tobacco use.

But some health advocates are pressing for even more stringent guidelines and have been ever more critical of summer blockbusters that feature characters who puff away. The American Medical Assn. Alliance last month complained of "unnecessary smoking" in "Hulk," in which a villain played by William Hurt is almost always shown with a cigar, and have called for an R rating on any film with "irresponsible or gratuitous tobacco images." Universal, which distributed the pic, said that it put a parental advisory in ad materials.

The EIF has not been part of efforts to ban the depiction of smoking in movies or to press for the MPAA on ratings classifications. But it has led initiatives to educate filmmakers on depictions of smoking in movies. The EIF, the Motion Picture & Television Fund and the Motion Picture Industry Pension & Health Plan also led an industry smoking cessation program called Picture Quitting. And in May, under a program sponsored by EIF, the American Cancer Society and the Will Rogers Institute, exhibitors started running a quit-smoking PSA starring Eugene Levy in theaters.

Paulsen said they encountered no resistance from the studios, but it took months to bring the parties together and to draw up the deals.

"They were all incredibly supportive and felt it was the important thing to do and the right thing to do," she said.