The blue-background, unambiguously hetero Humpday DVD cover doesn’t surprise me. Magnolia marketers are making the assumption that the average DVD browser is a stone monkey who hasn’t heard word one about Humpday over the last seven months, or read a single Humpday review. Of course not! Why would anyone? And so he/she can’t be expected to know it’s a straight bromance. So Magnolia is spelling things out — that’s all.

Humpday DVD cover art; original theatircal poster

In short, they just don’t want anyone getting the idea that Mark Duplass and Josh Leonard, like, bone each other. I didn’t want to see it myself before last January’s Sundance for this reason. Just not into plots about guys spreading cheeks…sorry.

And so they’ve naturally made the background boyish blue instead of gay pink. On top of which they’ve put Alycia Delmore, who plays Duplass’ wife, between the two. This isn’t a cheat but an accurate indication of what the story’s about. She’s very much part of things start to finish so it all fits. The Humpday DVD is out on 11.17.08.

If someone can find a higher-quality, larger-pixel rendering of the DVD jacket, please advise.