A View Askew at Kevin Smith’s Box Office Track Record

HOLLYWOOD (Zap2it.com) – When “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” opens at around 2,000 theaters, it will mark the widest release of writer-director and reticent half of the dynamic duo Kevin Smith’s career. At $15 million, it’s also the biggest budget he’s ever had to work with, a pittance when one takes into consideration that the average Hollywood production costs $55 million. But Smith’s movies have never been big at the box office, despite the devoted fanbase his View Askewniverse has garnered, especially on the Internet.

Though it was made on a shoestring budget of $27,000, Smith’s debut “Clerks” cost an additional $230,000 for post-production after it was picked up by Miramax Films. Immediately creating a stir among film buffs with its distinctive voice when it was released on Oct. 19, 1994. It started with a solid $31,665 from two theaters. Ultimately reaching 96 venues, it enjoyed an extended run, ending up with $3.2 million total.

His second picture “Mallrats” opened a year later on Oct. 20, 1995, but it did notregister with audiences in the same way. Produced by Universal Pictures via its now defunct division Gramercy banner on an exponentially larger budget of $6.1 million, it was downright rejected, debuting to just $1.15 million from 852 theaters. It couldn’t even double that by the end of its run, quickly petering out at $2.1 million.

For “Chasing Amy,” Smith returned to Miramax and his micro-budget roots, spending a mere $250,000, though he carried-over actors Jason Lee and Ben Affleck from “Mallrats” for the lead roles. The results were his best reviews and box office yet. Going back to a platform release pattern after the “Mallrats” debacle, “Amy” opened to a solid $52,446 from three venues on the weekend of April 4, 1997. Expanding to 553 theaters at its widest point, it grossed $12 million total.

Labeled blasphemous by various Catholic groups, the release of Smith’s next picture, the $10 million religious comedy “Dogma,” was delayed. Miramax’s parent company Disney buckled under the pressure and ditched it, despite the presence of the post-”Good Will Hunting” team of Affleck and Matt Damon. Canada-based distributor Lion’s Gate Films snatched up the rights and opened “Dogma” nationwide on Nov. 11, 1999. It bowed to $8.7 million from 1,269 theaters, and went on to earn $30.7 million total.

“Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” stars Smith’s most popular characters in what is understood to be their last movie appearance, at least in live-action form as they’ll appear in a planned animated follow-up to “Clerks.” As such, chances are they’ll go out with a bang by Smith standards, likely delivering the director his biggest box office returns to date.

Welded at the hip throughout Jay and Silent Bob with Smith’s mostly (but not entirely) non-verbal, Greek chorus-like character, “Jay” never flinches or hesitates. He speaks only in raw fundamentals. When he runs into Jason Biggs toward the end, he says without hesitation what each and every one of us would probably say to ourselves but would never have the crude honesty to articulate: “Hey, you f***ed the pie!”

And with Smith’s dialogue to work with, he’s funny. This is an article of faith among Smith fans. Watch this film with a group of them and you’ll see what I mean. As Gen-X/Gen-Y culture goes, it’s not inappropriate to call Mewes “legendary.”

One definition of a movie star is someone who essentially plays the same character over and over, which people are happy to pay to see over and over. By this standard, Mewes is starting to qualify. Or will qualify, I should say. I expect Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back to get lots of repeat business, which Mewes will be able to take some credit for.

“Jay By Jay”

by Mark Voger
Page X Writer

Same face, same slur, same flair for expletives deleted. But Jason Mewes is not Jay, the dim-witted stoner he embodies in “Jay and Silent Bob Stike Back”.

Jay, the character, has come a long way since birth in a 1994 low-budget indie. Jay became a cartoon, and action figure, and a comic-book hero. Mewes, the actor, has likewise ascended. He and writer-director Kevin Smith are reviving that fossilized movie genre, the comedy team. Roll over, Abbott and Costello.

In “J&SBSB”, opening in seven days, the title characters descend on Los Angeles to thwart a film adaptation of “Bluntman and Chronic”, superheroes based on their likenesses. Mewes is asked to characterize who he has played in five films by Smith.

“He just seems like someone that just is really oblivios to a lot of stuff.,” Mewes tells PAGE X. “It chnages, really, in all the movies. He gets his mind set on something and he just does it. Something really silly.

“Like, in ‘Mallrats’ (1995), he really wants to bust up the stage. He’s set on doing that. That was it. Like, nothing else that came up – like, he wasn’t even thinking about anything else.

“In this (‘J&SBSB’), like, in one scene or another, Holden (Ben Affleck) was talking about the (‘Bluntman and Chronic’) movie and how they’re not talking about Jay and Silent Bob – they’re talking about the characters. And Jay’s just sittin’ there, thinkin’, like, ‘So, all we have to do is stop the movie and they’ll stop talkin’ —- about us!’ “So it’s just getting there and stopping them movie from getting made, even though there was other stuff. They’re always on a mission, it seems like. Always wantin’ to just be obnoxious and hang out and harass people and stuff.”

In the new film, Mewes is top-billed for the first time.

“I mean, it’s awesome,” says the former roofer, 27, who attended Henry Hudson Regional High School, Highlands.

“I was psyched when Kevin told me that we’re the main characters and our names are on the title. It’s been awesome. You know, a lot of dialogue, which was great for, like, a test for me and stuff. And also, hopefully, it’ll help getting other jobs. I’m out there more and stuff.”

Mewes says he has something better than a tuxedo in mind for the film’s premiere.

“I have some new gear that I like to wear when I go out,” Mewes says shyly. “So – see if I can get away with wearing that.”

Er, what kind of gear is that?

“Pimp gear. Me and my friends been goin’ out to, like, bars and —- on the weekends in this gear. It’s cool-lookin’. So maybe we’ll try to get away with goin’ with that.”

DF: Was there anything you wanted to do with the disc that you couldn’t or didn’t?

VP: The only thing, and this was after the fact only because I hadn’t seen it, when Don went out to LA before they started authoring it, he went through the master tape and did a lot of restoration on it. There were like ten or twelve spots in the film where we had damaged frames, they were damaged in the negative or there was dirt on them, and he was able to erase that stuff pretty substantially. Basically get rid of all the big stuff. There’s still a little fleck here or there, but all the big stuff he got rid of. After I saw it, when I was sent the check disc, I thought it would have been cool to do a restoration demonstration. But that’s about the only thing that came to mind and that’s pretty much it. I had some Q&As recorded, but I never had a chance to look at any of them and see if they were good, to throw a Q&A on there. That might have been cool, but I just never really had access to the footage. But I’m not beating myself over the head about it.

DF: So now that A Better Place is done, it’s been a long journey but the disc is finally ready, what are you doing now?

VP: I’ve been writing this script, it seems like forever, being that I am a huge horror movie fan and a big Dario Argento fan, I wrote this sort of Argento-esque murder-mystery. I’ve written three drafts of it so far and I’m writing a forth draft now. The new draft seems to be going well and hopefully I’ll be done with it soon. And that’s what I want to do next, but I’m going to have to raise a pretty decent budget for it. Not like $100 million or anything like that, but compared to the $40 thousand it cost to make A Better Place, it’s going to be a pretty substantial amount more. But that’s the one I want to do next.

There are a couple other ideas that are smaller. One in particular, and the plots so bizarre I’m not even going to describe it because I just have to write it and try and figure it out, that would probably be more like an indie, art house-type film. But the first thing is to finish this draft of Autograph, which is the murder-mystery and then I’ll try my hand at that idea and see what I can make of it. If I can’t get the money up to make Autograph just yet, then maybe I’ll go after that other project cause it’ll cost less to make. It wouldn’t be as commercial, but it would be an interesting little film.

‘SILENT’ PARTNERSHIP

By LOU LUMENICK

THEY may be the unlikeliest comedy duo ever to appear in a movie, let alone five, but the partnership of Kevin Smith and his longtime pal Jason Mewes looks like it’s finally going to pay off big.

Writer-director Smith, whose hilarious “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” (opening Friday) features Smith (a.k.a. Silent Bob) and the inarticulate Mewes (Jay) as a pair of none-too-bright dopers in their first starring roles, is getting the best audience-rating scores in Miramax history.

“I’ve resisted putting them front and center, like forever,” says Smith, 31, over a pork-roll sandwich at a diner near his office in Red Bank, N.J.

“I felt they worked best in small doses, but there’s such an audience awareness of the characters. They’ve got a lot of good will. We’re both relatively young, but not getting any younger. It just felt like if you’re ever going to do it, now’s the time.”

Mewes, 29, and Smith made their first appearance as Jay and Silent Bob as a kind of Greek chorus in Smith’s first movie, the 1995 ultra-low-budget sensation “Clerks.”

Smith planned to play one of the leads, “but I decided at the last minute I’m not an actor and I couldn’t memorize all of the dialogue. I still wanted to be in the movie, just in case it was the only one I ever made.”

Jay and Bob reappeared, with increasing prominence, in Smith’s “Mallrats,” “Chasing Amy” and “Dogma.”

They now have the leads in the highly self-referential “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” in which the dimwitted duo invade Miramax’s Hollywood studios to stop production of a movie about characters based on themselves.

“When I saw the poster, I had to chuckle. There’s Mewes, sitting front and center, and behind him peeking out are Ben Affleck, Chris Rock and Shannon Elizabeth,” says Smith.

“Mewes is not the most self-aware gentleman I’ve ever met, but there were moments of clarity when even he realized it’s a $20 million movie and it was all riding on his shoulders.”

Having briefly met Mewes on the set of “Jay and Silent Bob” earlier this year, I can attest that this outrageous motormouth is the most incongruous of potential movie stars. Having a coherent conversation with the man is impossible.

“He doesn’t know how to talk about movies or himself, because he doesn’t think it’s a big deal,” Smith said. “He makes movies because he likes getting free breakfast burritos for 60 days, $200 a day in cash for spending money and free T-shirts.”

Yet, Smith challenges the widely held assumption that Mewes is essentially playing himself in Smith’s movies.

“Jay is a highly romanticized version of what Jason was like when I met him at age 14, when he would help me put together Sunday newspapers at the convenience store where I worked,” Smith said.

“But he’s really blossomed as a performer. He really thinks as the character in the moment, of course without using those Stanislavsky-like terms.”

“Here’s a guy who could be as big as Affleck or [Matt] Damon, but he just can’t get it together. When he isn’t making a movie, you can usually find him on my couch or imbibing somewhere.

“Knowing Jason for 12 years was the best training for fatherhood I could ever get. There’s nothing [his 2-year-old daughter] Harley could do that would surprise me as much as that kid has surprised me.

“For a while, he was working at my comic book store [Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash, in Red Bank], but he was supposed to open up at 11 and wasn’t showing up until 1 o’clock.

“So I had to fire him from the store that bears his name. I mean, he’s irresponsible to an unbelievable degree.”

Smith hopes that “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” will be a hit so “somebody else will figure out a way to use Mewes.

“If you pay attention to the Internet, he has a huge cult following. This could make him the next big thing, though he’s been around for seven to eight years doing the same shtick.”

Jay and Bob will appear in an upcoming feature version of the “Clerks” cartoon, which was canceled by ABC last year after only three episodes aired.

But Smith swears there will not be any more live-action Jay and Bob movies.

“Look at what happened with ‘Scary Movie 2′ this summer,” said Smith, who plans to segue into a small film based on his experiences as a father.

“I’d rather push away from the table while people still like the characters rather than make ‘Jay and Bob in Outer Space’ or some such nonsense.”

A Phatty Boom Batty Flick

With his new movie, director Kevin Smith says thanks to family, friends and, yes, those nutty fans on the Web

By Devin Gordon
NEWSWEEK

Aug. 27 issue — The first person you meet on the set of Kevin Smith’s new movie, “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” is a guy named Ratface. He is Smith’s production designer, a job usually held by extravagant Italians or tasteful women. Ratface, ne Robert Holtzman, is just an old buddy of Smith’s. Like everybody else here. In today’s scene our heroes, played by Smith (“Chasing Amy,” “Dogma”) and childhood pal Jason Mewes, learn that a comic book based on their lives is being made into a movie—and the boys aren’t seeing a dime. At the moment, the crew is on a break.

PRODUCER SCOTT MOSIER (a film-school classmate) sips coffee while Smith smokes a cigarette and gripes about a nasty post he got on his Web site. Some guy blasted him for failing to include an actress from “Clerks,” his cult-classic debut, in the cameo-heavy new film. Smith, his accuser claimed, was forgetting his roots. “Come on,” says the director, 31. “You can say a lot of s—t about me, but that’s gotta be the last thing. I mean, look around!”

The man’s got a point. “Jay and Silent Bob,” or “J&SB,” as cyberfans have dubbed it, is Smith’s cinematic thank-you to everyone who helped make him what he is today: arguably cinema’s funniest writer about sex, certainly its most candid. In bit parts over four films, his twin creations have become minor heroes—like C3PO and R2D2, only perpetually stoned (hence the title, an allusion to “The Empire Strikes Back”). This time they’re the stars, clearing room for cameos by old friends from Ben Affleck to Brian O’Halloran, who played Dante in “Clerks.” Today’s shooting location, in fact, is Smith’s own comic-book shop in Red Bank, N.J., his hometown, where he still lives with his wife and infant daughter. Fans get their nod as well: Jay and Silent Bob embark on a voyage to stop their movie after reading bad buzz about it on the Internet.

In case it’s not clear from the screwball plot, “Jay and Silent Bob” isn’t exactly a good movie. Unlike his last two films, the straight-gay romance “Chasing Amy” and the polemical religious comedy “Dogma,” here Smith has less than nothing to say. Still, the movie is damn funny—even if the terms “snootchie bootchies” and “phatty boom batty” mean nothing to you. And after “Dogma,” which prompted death threats for its critical take on the Roman Catholic Church, that’s all Smith wants to hear. “Biting your nails, not being able to open your f—king mail—after a while, I was like, ‘Hey, why don’t we do something light next time?’ ” With this movie, he says, “either you laugh or you don’t.”

Succeed or fail, Smith is bound to get an earful from his fans—and he’s looking forward to it. It’s three months after the shoot in Red Bank, and Smith is sitting in a dim recording studio in Los Angeles, working on the “J&SB” score. Or, rather, everyone else in the room is working on the score. Smith, eating a tuna sandwich, is surfing the Web on his laptop. He stops first at the movie-gossip site Ain’t It Cool News to check out an interview he gave. Then it’s on to Smith’s home page, ViewAskew.com, where he’ll post an update on his movie’s progress.

He launched the site in 1996, and a love affair was born. Smith is a warm, chatty soul whose portly frame and sloppy clothes are the outward signs of a guy who couldn’t pull off phoniness if he tried, and he tingled at the idea of meeting some kid in Idaho who loved his work. It slowly dawned on him that it was also shrewd business. Smith’s films are not blockbusters—his budgets are tiny, and his biggest hit to date, “Dogma,” grossed just $31 million. But he always turns a profit, largely because his rabid fan base is champing at the bit by the time his movies open.

Easy access doesn’t come without a price, though. “People who don’t like your s—t will hunt you down and tell you—behind the anonymity of a modern-day CB handle. I honestly don’t mind if someone says, ‘You suck.’ But have the courage to say who you are. It’s fascinating to get a three-page analysis of your work from some guy named Wampa12.” Smith stops to take a drag on his cigarette. He’s not done. “Some days you just wanna pick up the phone, call Magnum P.I. and say, ‘Get me the address of Wampa12′.” At the end of “Jay and Silent Bob” the boys do exactly that, showing up on the doorstep of their slanderers and beating them silly. For that one, Kevin, the thank-you is on us.

LA Times.Com – “Heroes At Large”
New York Daily News – “Jay and Silent Bob Bow Out”
Asbury Park Press – “Kevin Smith Strikes Back”
Hollywood Reporter – “Silent Majority”

DC Comics saved their biggest announcement for last at WizardWorld, announcing at the late afternoon Green Arrow panel that the entire creative team on Green Arrow, will leave the series to relaunch a monthly The Brave and the Bold series for DC next year – the first time DC has had an ongoing Brave and the Bold series since 1983.

The move will come shortly after the conclusion of the twelve-issue “Quiver” story arc, according to series editor Bob Schreck. At the panel, Smith speculated the team would leave somewhere between issues #14 and #16.

The new incarnation of The Brave and the Bold will not be the monthly “Batman and…” series it had been for the bulk of the original series run. Rather, the series will be Smith’s opportunity to play with the entire DC Universe, teaming whichever characters he chooses in single issue or multi-part stories. Smith sees the new incarnation of the series as a return to the original concept of The Brave and the Bold, which instead of strictly limited to “Batman and…” was two or more heroes teaming up for a story.

Historically, the original The Brave and the Bold series brought together groups of heroes that later spun off into their own team books, including the Suicide Squad, the Justice League, and the Teen Titans. The “hero team-up” concept began with issue #50, which, coincidentally enough, starred Green Arrow and Martian Manhunter.

Schreck told Newsarama that the idea for relaunching the series came just prior to Smith’s signing appearance at the DC booth at the recent San Diego Comic Con. According to the editor, Smith asked Schreck if he could do such a project, Schreck walked over to DC Publisher Paul Levitz on the spot and asked, Levitz said yes, and the ball started rolling.

According to Smith, he got the idea when writing the issues of Green Arrow that had Batman as a guest star. Logically enough, Smith explained the first story arc will be Green Arrow and Batman, while much of the series will feature Green Arrow and Batman working together.

While it’s still too early for the team to be settling on many other specific characters, penciling Phil Hester told Newsarama that he’s extremely excited about the project and is anxious to explore the “darker corners” of the DCU. Hester also mentioned he has a particular affection for the DC’s Ragman character.

A new creative team for Green Arrow has not been named.

Smith said that Conner Hawke, Oliver Queen’s son will be appearing in the “Quiver” storyline where he plays a major role.

Smith couldn’t come up with any characters by name who would appear in The Brave and the Bold aside from Green Arrow and Batman, but did express his interest in using obscure characters. He did joke that the Haunted Tank would team with Batman.

When asked about new View Askew projects, such as the previously announced Bartleby and Loki and Mallrats projects, Smith said that he hasn’t written either project yet, but has plot outlines and ideas on paper. Smith said he’d eventually get around to writing them when his schedule allows.

Ferrell doesn’t really have to worry about rubbing anyone the wrong way (the folks at GLAAD included) in Kevin Smith’s Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (opening Aug. 24), which finds him playing a dim-witted federal wildlife marshal. As the 34-year-old concedes, the part wasn’t much of a stretch. “I’ve played some bumblers,” he admits. “I guess it would be fun to play somebody intelligent. But I have fun being a bumbler — especially one who doesn’t know that’s what he is.”