Six major film studios reached an agreement yesterday to place anti-smoking ads on new movie DVDs, a move which intends to influence children against tobacco use.

The announcements will be made by the California Health and Human Services Agency and will be placed in the DVD releases of all new movies rated G, PG or PG-13. The ratings are used in the US to designate a film as being aimed mainly at kids.

The agreement reached by the film studios was made public by the Entertainment Industry Foundation, a nonprofit organization which aims to decrease the presence of tobacco on screen and on film sets.

According to the deal reached between Sony Pictures, Universal Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Walt Disney Studios and Twentieth Century Fox, the anti-smoking announcement will be introduced in the opening minutes of DVDs of all new movies with smoking scenes.

The add will be called “Icons” and will put in the same picture tobacco industry images of a cowboy, a hip-hop DJ and a 1920s flapper with a dying man in a wheelchair.
The add will be first seen on the Sony DVD release of "21" which hits retail shelves on July 22.

Lisa Paulsen, president of the Entertainment Industry Foundation, said that the measure of placing the anti-smoking adds on DVDs will remind viewers that movies are fiction but the damage inflicted by tobacco use is as real as it gets.

Dan Glickman, chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America, said the industry’s intention was to notify parents “about smoking depictions in films so they can make informed decisions.”