KEVIN SMITH RETURNS TO RED BANK – GET YOURSELF SOME EAST COAST Q&A ACTION

For those of you on the East Coast who want to catch on of Kevin’s famous Q&A’s, there are still a few tickets left for Kevin’s Q&A in Red Bank at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, New Jersey – the place where it all started.

The show starts at 8:00pm THIS SATURDAY – APRIL 2. Tickets can be obtained by calling the Count Basie box office at 732-842-9000 or visiting their online ordering site http://tinyurl.com/6dpzp.

AND AFTER THE Q&A….

Kevin will be doing a book signing for the newly released ‘Silent Bob Speaks: The Collected Writings of Kevin Smith’ at Jay & Silent Bob’s Secret Stash immediately after the Q&A in Red Bank. This book does not street in other stores until April 13th so here’s your chance to not only get an early copy, but to also get it signed by the author.

I remember when you were working on “Jersey Girl” that you had said goodbye to all those characters from “Clerks.” So why go back?

It’s probably a three-fold reason. First off, I put them away at a time when Jason Mewes (Jay) was so knee-deep in heroin and oxycontin that is became not fun to make those movies any more. And he’s since cleaned up. April 6 he celebrates his two years’ completely-clean-and-sober birthday. So Mewes getting out of drugs certainly helped.

Also, last year I was working on this “Clerks X” DVD, which is a three-DVD set we put out to celebrate the 10th anniversary of “Clerks.” I hadn’t spent that much time with the movie since we were editing it, and I just fell in love with those characters again and was just like, Boy, I would like to make a movie about these guys to see where they were in their lives 10 years later, to see what happens when the angry young man grows up. Also, it became really appealling to shoot a movie with guys who weren’t insane movie stars, whose relationships on and off camera might threaten the box office of our movie or how our movie was perceived. So it was like, Boy, I would like to make a movie with Brian and Jeff again, that would be fun.

And then also I was supposed to be doing “Green Hornet.” I had signed up to do this big, cinematic comic-book adaptation. But once the dust settled from the deal being settled, I was struck by the notion that I’ve never wanted to make one these movies. I like watching these movies, but I never wanted to make one of those movies. The idea of making a $70 million movie, it’s just not your movie anymore. It becomes somebody else’s movie because you’ve got to appease the mainstream because that’s who’s got to show up in order for you to make your money back. You can’t just go after your fan base and the people who traditionally watch your stuff. You have to appeal to a far broader audience. And I just can’t do that. I don’t know how to do that, and I have no interest in doing that because then you start to lose your voice – me, personally, as a filmmaker. Some people can absolutely pull it off. I just don’t think I can.

So rather than think about doing that, I was like, “You know, I would rather make a movie where I have complete complete control, it’s completely in my voice, and I don’t have to worry about a bunch of people showing up to see it because the budget would be so insanely cheap.” So finally I was just like, “Do it. Do ‘Clerks 2.’ Why not ‘Clerks 2′?”

So, you’re working now on “Passion of the Clerks”?

No, we start shooting in the first week of June. That’s the slated start.

Are you going to be sticking with the “Passion of the Clerks” title?

Until Mel Gibson rips it out of our hands, yeah. I’d be shocked if we made it all the way through to theatrical release with that title. The bad thing about the title is that some people have been going, “So it’s a parody film?” Really, it’s not a parody film at all. The title is insanely appropriated for the subject matter once you’ve seen the movie.

After months of tug-of-war negotiations, the Walt Disney Company and Miramax founders Bob Weinstein and Harvey Weinstein finally announced an agreement Tuesday, ending their 12-year relationship. It boiled down to this: Disney gets the Miramax name and library; the Weinsteins reportedly get $130-140 million, Miramax’s Dimension Films subsidiary, and several films that they’ve been developing (although they must pay Disney a fee for each of them). Today’s New York Times reported that the Weinsteins intend to combine the money with whatever their investment bankers, Goldman Sachs, line up to start a new film company. For the time being, it’s being called “The Weinstein Co.” In an interview with the Times, Harvey Weinstein implied that things might have gone differently if the new regime at Disney had been in place earlier. Weinstein ticked off numerous “entrepreneurial deals” that Disney, under Michael Eisner and chief strategist Peter Murphy had rejected. “At the new Disney,” Weinstein told the newspaper, “I think that those entrepreneurial efforts will be met with a stronger response. So that’s the irony of this deal.” Separately, he told the Wall Street Journal: “I could have built a $5 billion company, rather than a $2 billion one.” Analysts expressed doubt that the Weinsteins will be able to enjoy more autonomy with their new company than with their old. Veteran media analyst Jeffrey Logsdon with investment bankers Harris Nesbitt said in a Los Angeles Times interview: “Clearly, they’ve had enormous financial flexibility under the Disney umbrella, which is not likely to continue no matter how they design their independent company.” The Weinsteins are due to remain with Miramax until September 30. Thus far, there has been little speculation about who will replace them. (Disney said Tuesday that their successors will be named in July.) Speaking to the Chicago Tribune, Paramount Pictures Co-President Ruth Vitale remarked, “To me the biggest curiosity factor is who’s taking over Miramax and what will that look like? That’s more interesting to me. Harvey and Bob will be Harvey and Bob wherever they are.”