Writer-director Kevin Smith told SCI FI Wire that he may withdraw from directing the upcoming Green Hornet movie because his last film, Jersey Girl , failed at the box office and shook his confidence in his ability to handle a major movie. “Right after Jersey Girl came out and kind of underperformed, I was just like, ‘I got no business making large-budget movies,’” Smith said in an interview at a preview for the DVD set for his first movie, Clerks . “I should always make movies that cost less than 10 million bucks. … I just don’t think somebody like me should be in charge of big-budget movies. I’m too interested in dialogue, and dialogue and big budgets just don’t blend very well.”

Smith continues to write the script for the proposed movie, an update of the 1930s radio serial about millionaire newspaper publisher Britt Reid, who masquerades as the crime-fighting Green Hornet, for Miramax. Smith added that Miramax honcho Harvey Weinstein has encouraged Smith to keep his options open. “Ideally, yeah,” Smith said. “He said, yes, he would like me to do it. He wants me to get over my chickens–t attitude. I don’t know if it’s chickens–t.”

What would it take for Smith to helm the film? “I don’t know,” he said. “Like I said, if I do it, I don’t think I’m going to do it alone. I think I’m going to bring somebody on with me to co-direct it. Because I just don’t trust myself. … There’s people that I like. And whether or not Miramax would agree to let me bring those people on is a whole different story.”

Smith said that he is about 50 pages away from completing the script. He added: “We have to start making the movie by April [2005]. Or Miramax has to start making the movie by April ‘05, so whether it’s with me or not, it’ll go into production.”