Meet Kevin Smith IN PERSON at Jay & Silent Bob’s Secret Stash in Red Bank – August 7th!

Coming out for the Netflix Rolling Roadshow presentation of ‘Clerks’ on Tuesday August 8th? Why not come out a day early so you can MEET KEVIN SMITH.

On Monday, August 7th ‘Clerks II’ writer and director Kevin Smith returns to Red Bank, NJ to sign ANYTHING and EVERYTHING from 2:00pm until the very last fanboy is satisfied at Jay & Silent Bob’s Secret Stash in Red Bank, NJ.

On hand at the store will be plenty of posters, screenplays and items from the just-released ‘Clerks II’ as well as the brand new CHASING AMY INACTION FIGURES!

Finke Makes a Stink

There’s a woman named Nikki Finke who writes for the L.A. Weekly, and she seems to have taken issue with the MySpace Credits Contest we did for “Clerks II”. “This could very well be the most insulting thing I’ve ever heard,” she writes. “A huge diss, to anyone who’s ever legitimately earned a credit on a film.”

Yes – she’s serious.

Aside from the fact that the Lady Finke’s finger seems to be pretty far from the pulse (this blog entry’s a bit behind the times, considering the contest launched June 30th – nearly a month ago – and was covered by more alert media back then), she’s presupposing an industry outrage and ire that simply doesn’t exist. No guild has said a word about the credits contest. Know why?

Because there’s nothing to be upset about.

What Finke would realize, if she bothered to do her homework (which would require not even a full viewing of the flick, but merely a pop-in during the end credits), is that the MySpace names don’t appear in the credits proper of “Clerks II”. The film’s credits end (with all the proper logos and copyright legalese), the screen goes to black, and then after five to ten seconds, a new crawl (although “crawl” is hardly the term I’d use to describe the speed with which the names zip up the screen) begins.

Why is this an issue for Nikki Finke when nary a guild member nor other film artisan seems to care? It’s so sad. Weinstein Co. finds a fun way to spice up the marketing a bit, and this woman tries to kill-joy the whole endeavor.

In addition, of an earlier promotion the Weinstein Co. did at YouTube for “Lucky Number Slevin”, she also writes “Yeah, we saw what that promotion did for those movies’ bottom-line: Slevin made a pathetic $22 million, and Clerks 2 is well on its way to more failure.”

For someone who covers the film biz, I found that statement rather oblivious. Our flick’s budget was five million bucks. We did twice that in the opening weekend. The film’s foreign sales more than covered its negative cost. Our marketing budget was pretty modest – especially for a summer release. Even if after the box office split the Weinstein Co. will make with the theaters, our thetrical run winds up simply being a wash (meaning all costs are covered), that means everything we made on DVD is pure profit. If “Clerks II” DVD is anything like the DVD on “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back”, we’re looking at forty million bucks, easily. Forty million bucks in profit. Where’s the “failure”?

Aside from “Little Miss Sunshine” (which opens this week), “Clerks II” may be the lowest budgeted wide release of the summer. We were modest across the boards, in shooting and opening the flick. We did this because we had a model in the “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” release. That film turned out to be very profitable, so we simply plugged in lower numbers when doing the “Clerks II” budget, to ensure high profitability for the Weinstein Co. Spending 75% less to make the current flick, spending far less to market the current flick and opening to roughly the same numbers ($11mil for “Strike Back”, $10mil for “Clerks II”)? In what world is that a “failure”? It may not be sexy huge like the “Pirates” numbers, but when it comes to the business half of the show business equation, being in the plus column is all that matters (on the show side of the equation? Making the film you want to make).

And since when are the credits sacrosanct anyway? If Finke feels the post-credits addition of ten thousand names is some kind of “huge diss, to anyone who’s ever legitimately earned a credit on a film”, what must she think of my end credits “Thank You” shout-out to God, or to “Jersey Girl” for “taking it so hard in the ass and never once complaining”. When a dog is listed in the credits, is this somehow an affront to the performers in a film with speaking roles? I dedicated “Jersey Girl” to my recently deceased Father (a dubious honor, I know) who had nothing whatsoever to do with the making of the picture; should the filmmaking community be livid that such an undeserving cad as my dead Old Man wound up with his name in the credits?

Bottom line? Ms. (or Mrs.) Finke can try to tempest-in-a-douchebag the contest all she wants; it doesn’t change the fact that it was a fun thing to do that all involved seem to enjoy. And if nobody (but Finke) is upset about it, where’s the harm?

Shit – had I known she was gonna react like that, I’d have thrown her name in the credits too, as follows…

Crackpot With Too Much Free Time – Nikki Finke

Editorial Note: When I use the term “Crackpot”, I am in no way, shape or form implying that this old Hollywood warhorse is crazy. I would never say Nikki Finke is crazy. Never.

Random info about Nikki Finke.

More on Nikki Finke.

Yo, just got out of kevin’s Late Late show taping. He’s the first guest, so there are two kev segments tonight. He discusses the feud with Joel in detail, and mentions the donkey show. Kev was very funny, the studio only holds 110 people but the place was going nuts.

Looks like I’ll be sitting in for Roger Ebert next week, as a guest critic on “Ebert and Roeper”. Kind of a cool honor, I feel.

We’ll be checking out “Miami Vice”, “Ant Bully”, “Talladega Nights”, “Barnyard” and maybe (fingers crossed) “World Trade Center”.

We’ll be taping next week, just prior to the Chicago WizardCon. I’ll let you know how it goes.

CNN: “Kevin Smith skewers his ‘sacred cow’: Sequel brings ‘Clerks’ up to date”

“…For all its vulgarity, “Clerks II” has a sweet sensibility and ultimately takes Dante and Randal to a place that should please fans of the original flick — and could leave them counting on “Clerks III.”

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Austin Chronicle: “A Convenient Truth”

“…I’m not trying to be better than Clerks; I just want to be “as good as,” while bringing everything we’ve learned over the course of making six movies to bear in the flick.”

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Film Buff Online: “Kevin Smith: From Clerks To Cannes And Back Again”

“…The rumor going around the internet was Clerks 2: Counter Terrorism,” Smith adds, laughing. “I think it’s funny, but they were like ‘You can’t use “terrorism” in a title.’”

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Comics Nexus: “Review: Clerks II” (**SPOILERS**)

“…In short, the movie is not just a laugh-fest. It’s got an important thought behind it as well. And you get to see a lot more of Jason Mewes than most people would want to see. If that’s not worth your six clams, I don’t know what is.”

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AssociatedContent: “A Clerks II Primer: Still Clerkin’ Hard”

“…Clerks II promises memorable moments from characters old and new.”

According to FINAL weekend box office numbers, “Clerks II” did a little better than the Sunday estimate of $9,625,000 for the weekend. The ACTUAL figure, according to the Weinstein Co. this morning, is $10,061,132.

Still doesn’t move us up the list any (we’re still #6), but we DID hit double digits, and were only a million off from our “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” opening weekend of $11mil. We spent $15mil less making “Clerks II”, and we spent way less marketing this movie. Add to that the fact that we were in profit before we opened, thanks to foreign sales, and you have the reason why both Harvey and Bob Weinstein called me this weekend to say “We’re happy. Now let’s keep moving in the right direction.”

In other news, our exit polls have been strong, and our tracking is still good. We’ll see what the weekday numbers look like, and hopefully, the drop next weekend won’t be too steep.

We officially doubled our budget in the first weekend. That feels good.

Final figures should be up at Box Office Mojo later today.

Friday, on the subject of “Clerks II” the Hollywood Report wrote “Bowing in 2,150 theaters, the R-rated film is likely to open in the $10 million range.”

The other main industry trade, Variety, wrote that we did “$11 million for ‘Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back’ on its first weekend in 2001. ‘Clerks II’ bow will likely be close to that.”

Today, at the close of our debut weekend, the word is as follows…

Reuters writes “Kevin Smith’s ‘Clerks II’ was No. 6 with $9.6 million, broadly in line with expectations.”

USA Today writes “Among the other newcomers, ‘Clerks II’ did a respectable $9.6 million for sixth…”

Box Office Guru says “Fans showed support for Kevin Smith whose comedy sequel ‘Clerks II’ debuted in sixth place with an estimated $9.6M from 2,150 theaters. Averaging a good $4,477 per site”

Len Klady at Movie City News writes “Additionally, ‘Clerks II’ ranked sixth with a passable $9.8 million”

And Variety writes that we “debuted with a lukewarm $9.6 million”

“In line with expectations.” “Respectable.” “Good.” “Passable.” “Lukewarm.” Not exactly enthusiastic buzzwords – more like the way any woman who’s ever been goodly enough to sleep with me has reviewed my cocksmanship.

I’m not gonna try to spin it for you: we’d have liked to have opened better, naturally.

And yet, I’m happy.

Let’s get the business stuff out of the way first…

Once again, in what’s been termed by some box office analysts as the “Star Trek”-Effect, we saw good Friday numbers dip on Saturday. Essentially, the hardest of hardcore fans show up in full-force on opening day, inflating the returns slightly, leaving Saturday to drop rather than enjoy the standard jump most flicks enjoy on the same day. So while it would’ve been nice to have done our best opening weekend ever with “Clerks II” (that 11 million “Strike Back” bar didn’t seem all that high to reach on Friday night), alas, it’s number six for us.

I can’t find anything to complain about; I mean, we nearly doubled our budget in the opening weekend. And while there were marketing costs (prints and advertising) beyond the negative cost ($5mil production budget) , they were pretty modest (indeed, we spent far less opening “Clerks II” than we did to open “Strike Back”). The flick should manage to get to $20 – $25mil theatrically, and eke out a minor theatrical profit, leaving all the DVD loot as total windfall.

In essence, we took the “Strike Back” paradigm, plugged in different, lower numbers, and are seeing pretty much the same results. But since “Strike Back” was a pretty profitable endeavor when all was said and done, “Clerks II” will be even moreso (a twenty million dollar budget vs. the five million dollar budget). Financially, it’ll be a winner for all involved.

But box office is a fleeting, opening weekend concern (which, yes, is easy to say when your box office isn’t big-tittied). What has been the non-financial upside of “Clerks II”?

– As per Rotten Tomatoes the flick was pretty well reviewed, holding steady at a 66% “Fresh” rating. For the first time since “Strike Back”, the New York Times gave us a positive shout-out.

– I was able to close down the Askewniverse more fittingly than I felt we did with “Strike Back”. It started with “Clerks” and now it ends with “Clerks II”.

– Not only did the flick get invited to the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, it got an eight minute standing ovation. (I know I keep harping on this, but it was one of the ten best moments of my professional career, so let me enjoy it; it’ll never happen again.)

– I was able to work side-by-side with lots of friends and family, and added a few new keepers to the mix (Rosario and Trevor) in the process.

– We got to document the entire pre-, production, and post experience in the “Train Wreck” making-of shorts over at www.clerks2.com.

– I got to make the exact flick I wanted to make, resulting in my fave of the bunch.

Was “Clerks II” worth the effort? Fuck yes. We made a flick that a lot of folks love (myself included) and thanks to our low budget approach, before the year is out, it’ll earn strong profits. So while we can’t boast box office bragging rights this weekend (then again, aside from “Monster House”, what newcomer can?), we’re not sitting here with shotguns in our mouths either. And in this wacky business, that’s about the best one can ever hope for, really.

Thanks, all, who checked the flick out already. Thanks to all who may check it out in the future.