I’m really rather ambivalent about Kevin Smith movies. His early stuff was funny, sure–I liked Jay and Silent Bob as much as the next guy–but it seemed like the farther along Smith got, the more it all started to fall apart. Everything after “Mallrats” was really just an exercise in fart jokes and futility, so I find myself somewhat surprised to hear that Smith can’t get funding to make a horror movie.
It’s called “Red State”, and it’s driven by all the folks who went Republican in the 2004 election, the so-called “red states”. It’s also supposedly driving by sociopathic hatemongers the Westboro Baptist Church, who if they read this would be convinced that I’m going to burn in hell forever because I dared say an unkind word about what I find to be their egomaniacal belief structure and their psychopathic tactics. That or they might sue–once saw a report that said the seventy-member church is mostly family members and most of the higher-ups are lawyers, but considering they’ve got a nearly eleven million dollar judgment hanging over their heads they’re not really in a position to go after me.
Smith himself explains the troubles with “Red State” thusly:
“We’re still looking for some cash for it ’cause it’s not a really commercial film at all. It’s very bleak and very dark, and there’s no one to root for in the movie, so it’s a real film festival type of film, but it’s not the kind of movie you can take into multiplexes and do a bunch of business with unless it becomes a water cooler type of movie where people start talking about it. So we’ve had trouble finding financing for it, but hopefully that’ll come together soon. Script’s all done. We want to make it for like $5 million in the Midwest and do it with a bunch of unknowns and see what happens.”
Amazingly, by Hollywood standards, five million is not a lot of money. But frankly, Smith doesn’t NEED five million to do that movie. I’ve seen excellent movies made on the strength of Mastercard balances. If he were to go direct-to-video with it, which he could probably do in a heartbeat and get a good deal because he’s KEVIN FREAKING SMITH, he’d probably do solid business with it and get it made his way to boot.
I’m even more amazed that Kevin Smith, who basically started the indie film movement in the United States, hasn’t launched his own direct to video distribution outfit, told the theatres where to get off and started making his movies his way. You want to make film festival types of films? Then make them! You’ve got the name recognition and by now if you don’t have the capital then you were either screwed or an idiot. Start things off with another Jay and Silent Bob buddy flick. You don’t think it’d sell? No way. People bought COMIC BOOKS because of those two–you can definitely launch that.
Why you haven’t already is beyond me.
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