Smith doesn’t expect “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” to win any Oscars, but he doesn’t care either. To him, he’s already gotten everything he could have wanted out of the two bumbling idiots. Not only did he buy back his comic books, but also the money he has made off of Jay and Silent Bob’s success (and the Jersey films) let him buy his own comic shop. While Smith admits he will miss writing stories involving the two characters– Jay and Silent Bob have not only starred in numerous films, but a “Clerks” TV show and various comic books– he knows that the thing that made work the most enjoyable was working with his friends, and that, he swears, won’t change.

“My friends and I working together certainly wasn’t because we were only telling stories about the same characters,” Smith states. “It’s a matter of me liking those people. It’s probably why those characters kept coming back. I would imagine that would stay the same. It’s not like just because there is no more Jay and Silent Bob and we aren’t in Jersey anymore we would throw in a whole new cast. There are too many great actors that we have dealt with that we’ll want to work with again.”

Maverick filmmaker Kevin Smith (Clerks, Chasing Amy) has found a way to take the Mad Mad concept and reimagine it as a self-tribute. Call it the Friars Roast method of casting. In Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, out Aug. 24, the title characters, played by Jason Mewes and Smith, sue a studio that is ripping off their comic books.

In what is essentially a road-trip flick, Jay and Silent Bob run into actors either in cameos or playing characters from other Smith releases. The list is a large one, including Ben Affleck and Jason Lee in dual roles, as well as Matt Damon, George Carlin, Carrie Fisher, Judd Nelson, Chris Rock, Mark Hamill and Alanis Morissette, reprising her God from Dogma.

Affleck planning for “Christmas”

By Michael Fleming

NEW YORK (Variety) – After surviving “Pearl Harbor,” Ben Affleck is in talks to star in “Surviving Christmas,” which is expected to begin within the next six months.

Affleck, who stars in the Disney WWII epic opening Friday, will play a man faced with spending Christmas alone. He tries to remedy his holiday depression by going back to the last place he was happy, his childhood home, and convinces the family living there to take him in.

The project will be produced at Columbia Pictures by Betty Thomas and her Tall Trees Prods. partner Jenno Topping. No director is attached yet.

After completing the starring role of a pilot in “Pearl Harbor,” Affleck took over the starring role in the Jack Ryan franchise with the Phil Robinson-directed “The Sum of All Fears” at Paramount. He will head over to “Surviving Christmas” after working for director Martin Brest in “Gigli.”

Thomas, whose directing credits include “Private Parts” and ”28 Days,” is preparing to shoot a feature version of the TV series “I Spy” in September. It stars Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson.

To say it went incredibly well would be a vast understatement. I’ll let the scores speak for themselves.

I’m sure most of you are familiar with the testing process. Cards are given out at the end of the screening, and data is compiled from a series of boxes (Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, Poor) in regards to a variety of topics (Characters, Pace, Music, Overall, etc). But when all’s said and done, there are only two categories that mean anything.

One is the “Top Two Boxes” – the combined score of which is the quoted figure that’s constantly referred back to (”We have to bring the scores up. It only scored a thirty in the top two boxes.”).

The other is the “Definitely Recommend”. This is in the recommend category in which the viewer is asked would they Definitely, Probably, Probably Not, or Definitely Not recommend the movie to others.

In the Top Two Boxes, in which the average (or normal) acceptable score is 55%, ‘Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back’ scored 86%. 86% of the audience said the film was Excellent or Very Good.

In the Definite Recommend category, in which the average (or normal) acceptable score is 45%, ‘Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back’ received a 79%.

We have never… NEVER received scores like that. To wit, the highest ‘Dogma’ ever scored was a 60% or 65% in the Top Two Boxes, with a 35% to 40% definite recommend. ‘Amy’ was somewhere in that range as well.

The Dimension folks informed me that these were some of the highest numbers not only in their history, but also Miramax’s.

And in terms of who made up the audience, only 14% of the group had seen all four of the prior flicks. So it wasn’t like we screened to a group of total fans; we were screening to fresh faces.

But let’s put aside the numbers and just talk about the screening in general.

It went like gangbusters. The audience was with the movie every step of the way. I’ve never heard an audience laugh so much in any of our prior flicks’ screenings.

It was… amazing.

Many thanks to all in attendance. 341 of you came, and none of you walked out (also a first for us; there’s always been at least a 2% walk-out rate). But most importantly, according to the numbers, virtually all of you enjoyed yourselves (indeed, the “Fair” and “Poor” ratings were 3% and 1% respectively).

I am a happy, happy man.