Movie studios hoping to have a film rated by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) — which studios must do in order to have their films shown in most major theater chains — must also agree to let all publicity and marketing materials be approved by the organization. Thus every movie poster in your local newspaper, video store, and googleplex has been appropriately vetted by the MPAA. Gayle Osterberg, a spokesperson for that organization, told the Washington Post that they have strict standards for publicity material: “If it’s a poster that’s hanging in a theater, anyone who walks into that theater, regardless of what movie they’ve come to see, will be exposed to it.”

Posterwire elaborates on some of the MPAA’s additional rules: “Sometimes they choose to impose a rule that a character cannot be holding more than one gun at a time. (Example: One of Lara Croft’s trademark dual pistols conveniently falls under a shadow in the “Tomb Raider” poster to meet this requirement.) But like all oversight by the MPAA, these rules are not consistent. (Example: Is Niboe free to hold two guns in “The Matrix Reloaded?”)”

The MPAA also has a thing about hoods, which is why they rejected the “Taxi to the Dark Side” poster above. It was also the reason they rejected the “The Road to Guantanamo” poster below. The implied torture of the hooded men in both posters caused the MPAA to reject them. Torture is OK for the U.S. government apparently, but not for the posters of movies about it.

The MPAA rejected the first poster submitted for “The Hills Have Eyes 2,” which featured a hand emerging from a dragged body bag. The approved version removed the hand but kept the body bag.

Another horror sequel, “Saw II,” which had a poster that depicted two severed fingers, had their original design rejected by the MPAA. It was replaced with a poster that featured a close-up shot of simply the digits, which obscured the fact that they were unattached to a hand, deeming the one-sheet thereby acceptable to the viewing public.

The studio who produced “Welcome to Valkenvania” decide to change the film’s name at the last minute, which is why you never saw the poster on the left below. The final version looks pretty similar, with only some slight tweaks to the shots of John Candy and Demi Moore in the skyline — and of course the change to the title.

On his blog, director Joe Carnahan posted a number of the rejected posters for “Smokin’ Aces,” two of which are below. The posters weren’t rejected by the MPAA, but rather the filmmakers, who decided between a number of one-sheets put together by the studio.

The poster on the left below wasn’t actually rejected, but was a comp put together by the design firm working on the poster for “Boomerang.” According to TVparty!: “Eddie Murphy was lobbying hard for the James Bond role at the same time ‘Boomerang’ was being released, so he decided all advertising for this movie was going to show the world just how Bond-ian he could be.” To make matters worse, Eddie refused to participate in any photo shoots, so his head had to be pasted onto shots of a body double on the final version of the poster.

The poster on the left for “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” made it through to the final selection process, but eventually lost out to the iconic image on the right.

The filmmakers for the documentary “This Film Is Not Yet Rated,” which turns a critical eye on the MPAA’s methodology, wisely chose not to get their movie rated by the agency, saving their skin-tastic one-sheets from being rejected, which they surely would have been.

After millions of dollars and dozens of rejected posters, the studio eventually settled on a simple Herb Ritts image for the “Bugsy” poster.

One of the proposed titles for 1990’s “Rocky V” was The Final Bell, which smartly, the studio avoided using, forecasting an aging Stallone — and a sagging studio bottom line — might force both parties to return to the franchise at some point in the future. Which they did in 2006 with “Rocky Balboa.”

Related: Through the Legs Darkly | Emma Watson’s IMAX Boob Job