Zack and Miri are a pair of slackers, some high-school best friends who have lived together for about ten years although nothing sexual happened between them. They are always hanging out together, they are inseparable, they love each other, but as two best pals. And nothing more. It sounds as if they had never even though about such romance.

The lifelong platonic friends have a change of heart when they realize they face a mountain of debt. What’s the next step? Zack, an employee at a coffee shop, and his apartment colleague, who works at a clothing store, decide to earn some money by entering the controversial field of self-produced pornography. And the rest is quite predictable.

Kevin Smith, the director of the feature-length animated film “Clerks,” wrote “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” considering the outstanding performances of the charismatic Seth Rogen in the highly amusing “Knocked Up” and “Pineapple Express.” Well-appreciated American screenwriter and film director but without a very broad audience, 38-year-old Smith hasn’t gained yet the fame he aspired to. But the 102-minute comedy does stand a chance to be a blockbuster and may propel him.

The U.S. put a ban on the promotional posters of “Zack and Miri” for the reason that a subtle sexual content was displayed on them. After creating a new poster that showed stick figures and read “Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks made a movie so titillating that we can only show you this drawing,” producers confronted with other problems: some newspapers and cable channels, as well as TV stations and city governments, declined to promote the movie claiming its title was badly chosen as it contained the outrageous word “porno.” The posters that have been banned in the U.S. will only be used in Canadian theaters.

“The film is really not all that filthy,” Smith said in a phone interview with MTV.com. “I mean, it lives up to its title, but to think it’s youth-destroying just because some kid will ask his parent what a ‘porno’ is ... what responsible parent can’t answer that question?”

The cast of the film, which was scheduled to open yesterday, October 31, in United States theaters, includes Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks (who portray the lead characters), Jason Mews, Jennifer Schwalbach Smith and Tisha Campbell-Martin. Considering the cast, I would say the film has the potential to become a major movie hit.

The Motion Picture Association of America initially assigned “Zack and Miri make a porno” NC-17 rating for some “graphic sexuality,” so it didn’t allow children under the age of 17 to see it. But the filmmaker appealed MPAA’s decision and rating for the comedy movie was lowered to an R.

Despite the fact that, at first, MGM was the one to release the production, “Zack and Miri make a porno” is distributed by The Weinstein Company, an independent American film studio.