A bikini-clad Kate Hudson and shirtless (when isn't he?!) Matthew McConaughey are the selling point for the Fool's Gold DVD.

Next to nothing is just about right for the DVDs of some movies -- such as the silly romp, Fool's Gold.

Even though it is arguably the mainstream movie of the week in home entertainment, the DVD for this romantic adventure-thriller-comedy debuts today with minimal extras.

All there is, besides the treasure-hunt movie itself, is a featurette and gag reel with Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson goofing off. The most significant on-set incidents -- the near-deaths of two divers -- is left unmentioned (the culprit was a tiny jellyfish known as the irukandji). So are the fear-freakouts by cast members in Australia, such as McConaughey's run-in with an eight-foot python, Hudson's brush with a funnel web spider and Donald Sutherland's concern with everything creepy crawly.

The featurette runs four minutes 33 seconds; the unfunny gag reel runs two minutes 46 seconds. Little else -- other than confessions and apologies -- was really needed to explain away this bronzed, sun-baked buffoonery.

Director Andy Tennant says logistics were part of the problem.

"We didn't have any room out on those boats," he says of placing an extra video crew to shoot behind-the-scenes footage for the scenes out in the ocean.

The genre also determines how much is spent on DVD extras, Tennant says. The DVD effort would be greater, he says, "if I was shooting Cloverfield ... a different kind of movie."

But the studio still desperately needs the DVD. Fool's Gold, shot on locations ranging from Australia's Great Barrier Reef to a sandy beach in the Caribbean, cost $70 million to make and millions more to release.

According to Boxoffice Mojo, it earned only $70 million in North America and another $40 million worldwide. That is a marginal return.

The selling point for the DVD remains McConaughey and Hudson and their supposed "chemistry" on the set of Fool's Gold, and earlier in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003).

The two co-stars are as kooky together in person as they are on the DVD. When I did the interviews for Fool's Gold, the two arrived as a package deal. Both charming, sweet and easy with the media, they clowned around for the 20 minutes. Examples:

Hudson on looking at photos of the superbly conditioned McConaughey before they started the latest shoot. "I was like, I gotta start working out because my body was a little, ummm, uh ... I gotta get myself up to Matthew standards, which is difficult."

McConaughey, despite playing a shirtless beach bum, on being the male bimbo of the flick: "Bimbo is probably the wrong word. He's a dreamer, man. Is he a boy? Absolutely -- eternally a boy. That was one of my favourite things about him. He's after the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow."

McConaughey on staying young himself: "You get older but you try to stay as young as possible inside. So I'm 38 now but I feel as young inside as I ever have."

Hudson on playing the more serious-minded character: "She's a little tomboyish, she's definitely like more cynical and she doesn't smile much. She's not a really smiley character, which is fun for me because I'm innately a smiley person, which is why people like to put me in smiley roles."

Hudson on doing a comedy, not a drama, at 29 years old: "I'll have plenty of time to play the depressed housewife."

Hudson on shooting Bride Wars with Anne Hathaway, another comedy and set for release in 2009: "It's a little bit of a dark comedy. It's two girls fighting for the altar and we do everything we can to destroy each other's wedding."