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A drunkenly tapped out entry in our Sundance memo list reading "chk katie sex missing" suddenly seems a lot less cryptic, as many outlets are reporting (here's LAist's) that Katie Holmes' Thank Your For Smoking sex scene was "mysteriously" cut from the festival's print. Naturally, this lead to much conspiracy theory talk, but the (official) explanation was ultimately mundane. From the LAT:

A couple of theories seemed possible. Had an enterprising operative from US Weekly sneaked into the Eccles Center projection booth and stolen the footage for an exclusive? Did Tom Cruise exert all of his Hollywood muscle to preserve the honor of his pregnant girlfriend? Or maybe conservative Utah activists felt Sundance's decadence had sunk so low, they took matters into their own hands.


The correct answer was not quite as provocative.

Reitman says that when the "Thank You for Smoking" print was assembled in Los Angeles, the scene — which comes at the end of the second reel but is preceded by a brief blackout — had been accidentally sliced off when the reels were spliced together.

Crackpot theories involving snip-happy Scientologists desperate to keep their Virgin Katie's innocence intact aside, we're happy that the theatrical version will include the missing scene; losing the last documented instance of Holmes having intimate contact with a man would've have been a profound tragedy.