Kevin Smith: (laughs) Roger Ebert is in rare form with how he keeps re-tweeting his Cop Out review. I was thinking if Roger was trying to send me a message. But he’s liked enough of my stuff in the past. He liked Jersey Girl, but I know he didn’t like Mallrats and Clerks II. He also said something great about Chasing Amy saying how he regretted not putting it in his top ten. Roger has always been so fucking fair. Even though people kept pointing out he keeps re-tweeting that Cop Out review and saying, “isn’t that suspicious?” Obviously I’m not retarded, it’s very suspicious. But he’s a guy who’s been nice to me throughout my career in particular when I really needed it. I wasn’t going to start yelling, “he did what? I fucking guested on his show!” I mean I’ve been saying a lot lately and it’s dawning on me, but I’m almost 40. Getting mad at Roger Ebert is just not in the cards for me. He’s an icon and I like the dude. He didn’t like it? That’s fine, he liked something else I did. It’s not like I don’t get it. I used to be very contentious… Shit, used to be? A few weeks ago I took on a huge corporation (laughs). That was a real thing, but getting mad about an opinion isn’t my thing. Maybe they’ll like the next one. For Cop Out, it’s a different world. A bad review for Cop Out isn’t going to fucking kill the movie. Most people going in are thinking, “we know it’s stupid, who cares?”

Read it all over at DVD Talk.

We’re talking about Dogma, the 1999 comedy in which Smith pits a pair of exiled angels (Ben Affleck and Matt Damon) against a ragtag group that includes a Greek muse turned stripper (Salma Hayek), the heretofore unknown 13th apostle (Chris Rock), Jesus Christ’s last surviving relative (Linda Fiorentino), and a pair of unwitting prophets (Jason Mewes and Smith as, of course, Jay and Silent Bob) — all while God (played by Alanis Morissette, natch) lies trapped in the comatose body of a homeless man (s)He was using to play skee ball. Not for the easily offended, obviously — but despite what Dogma’s detractors may have thought, Smith didn’t go for cheap gags, instead using humor to leaven a thoughtful look at what we believe, and why. “Make no mistake,” cautioned TV Guide’s Maitland McDonagh, “Kevin Smith’s talky, farcical comedy of cosmic errors is clever. But it’s clever in a deeply juvenile way.”

#16: Clerks (1994)

The ’90s Film: At the time, Kevin Smith’s comedy was a defining document of no-budget slacker filmmaking, with its slapshod camerawork, shaggy-dog dialogue and on-the-pulse video store setting.

Nowadays, apart from still being hilarious, it’s a period piece. The technical ability bar has been raised for budding auteurs, and – as Clerks 2 confirmed – nobody rents anymore.

If They Have To Remake It: It should be topical. Let’s set it in the vast warehouses of Lovefilm.com, with Dante and Randall bitching and moaning all day long as they traipse to the stockroom to post yet another boxset of The Hills.

Wanna BE green while reading my GREEN HORNET? Voila: http://bit.ly/9hZu4t Feel the Hornet’s sting on iPhone/Pod/Pad (sorry: no MaxiPad).

See me swear & sweat LIVE ON THE SUNSET STRIP! Me talking dirty at L.A.’s House of Blues, Friday, May 7th! http://viewaskew.com/events/hob

Via @dvdmike “plans for #CopOut bluray?” I’ve seen it. WB’s giving it MaximumMovieMode treatment (like WATCHMEN or 300). It’s LOADED.

Via @tim_brooks “will you be talking about the flick like z.snyder in watchmen’s max.movie mode?” Nonstop, starting with shield interaction.

A few years back, @SMosier produced an AcademyAwardNominated short film entitled SALIM BABA. Got a sec? http://tinyurl.com/PeepSalimBabaHere

Via @LukasRidge “whats the best thing you’ve ever written?” Could be on page 42 of it now… #HitSomebody

Here there be bickering! TELL ‘EM, STEVE-DAVE #7 is now ready to tickle your aural funny boner! I bow to them. http://smodcast.com/stevedave

Via @bluepoet3 “when does Batman: WG #6 street?” I think they resolicited the book & now it’s closer to June. Long wait, but worth it.

Via @bobbahawk “any chance you’ll be playing Carnegie Hall again? SModcast?” Yes. There was a June offer but we’re gonna wait ’til November.

DVD Talk: For big movies, like Transformers, most people really don’t care what critics have to say.

Kevin Smith: No, of course not. It’s ridiculous and it’s a waste of time to have some critic write a fucking review of Transformers or Cop Out. There’s no point. Get a twelve-year old to review it because that’s who you wanna hear from. I’ll believe a twelve-year old. If they say something sucks I’ll believe it. If a twelve-year old says something rocks, I’ll believe it. I’m not going to believe some fucking dude or chick who says, “I saw the movie for free, had a few hours to digest it, had a chance to think of my political stance on the filmmaker and the studio and had the chance to think about the people I want to push or hold back on, and now I’m going to write my fair and unbiased review.” It doesn’t work like that. I believed that forever since that was the world I was raised in. I believe to this day the New York Times review of Clerks made my career. Janet Maslin opened so many doors with that review. That review meant something. Reviews don’t matter as much anymore. Why? Because you can talk to the fucking audience. That was the only way to hear about. I don’t know, it’s weird. I’m not bitter about it, because I didn’t read many of the reviews. Even if I did, it’s just a lot of energy to spend on a movie that didn’t try to do anything besides making people laugh. That was it and that was our agenda. It has nothing to do with art except for the art of making people laugh. We had very talented artists onboard to make that happen. But for a movie like this, why even bother reviewing it? To me, it just makes a film critic look like a bully. Why bother?

Want more? Hit up DVD Talk and keep an eye right here. We’ll let ya know when more is on the way.

Director Kevin Smith, known for movies “Zack and Miri make a Porno” and “Cop Out”, is about to start work on a horror movie. The movie will be called “Red State” and will be about hate towards gays in the American Church. Smith, himself bisexual and according to some the inspiration for the character with the same name in cult-horror game “killer7”, wants to make Red State into a very serious and dark horror movie. The release is planned for next year.

Bisexual, eh? That’s a good one.

Via @GothyChainsaw “saw COP OUT. I totally loved it!” This week it’ll be the first film I directed to have a 4 at head of box office gross.

Via @AnZsDad “Fantastic episode. Glad to have Scott back. Now to order a Fleshlight” In two weeks: SCOTT’S tale of Fleshlight ribaldry…

If you love(d) Carlin, come see him get blown posthumously @ NY Public Library’s George Carlin tribute event, March 24th. I’m totally going.

Lots more fun as always, direct on the feed – We’re just spotlighting the big news. For all the fun, humor, and random comments, you gotta follow @ThatKevinSmith.

Via @FiendishDrWu “Any chance of Mewescast being resurrected?” He’s shooting two gigs, so no time. But I’ve still got 2 more pods coming…

Via @KIRedford “saw #COPOUT but i didnt see Morgan funny “hand-twitch” as mentioned in SMod. Why?” Scene was shortened. Deleted scene now.

Consider for a moment that both Bryan & Walt, and Malcolm & his Mom both saw their podcasts debut at #20 in iTunes. Out of what? 2million?

Via @DaveHarper1888 “DUBLIN shows. WHEN?” We’re looking at Sept/Oct/Nov at the moment. That’d be London, Glasgow, Dublin again, + new stops.

Via @billlehecka “$9.1mil weekend. #CopOut looks profitable. Better: profitable or have critical acclaim?” The former means you work again.

Don’t forget — Kevin exclusively offers a dirt cheap swag item each day via his Twitter feed , but only to the first 37 twitter users who buy it. Then, it’s gone. That, and the daily laughs, are but two of the many reasons you gotta be following @ThatKevinSmith if you’re not already. While you’re at it, don’t forget, @NewsAskew is on there too.

Congrats to Kevin and all the cast and crew of “Cop Out” for getting the job done. Box office analysts are calling the film a win as well, citing that it’s one of Willis’ best openings in years. This weekend’s numbers also tell us that word of mouth is good, and that audiences are continuining to check out the movie despite some other big releases looking to push it out of the way. With many international releases still on the way, and the eventual DVD/Bluray versions, we’re expecting continued kudos to Kevin, and crossing our fingers for good news on the “Hit Somebody” and “Red State” projects here in 2010. Stick around, it’s gonna get even more interesting around here. More news later today.

Kevin Smith on the media’s coverage of ‘Fatgate’: ‘They’re really pathetic’

“We all took pay cuts to keep it R-rated, which with me meant I gave up 80% of my salary, but it was worth it,” he says, explaining that, thanks to some tax rebates, the movie cost roughly $37 million to make. He certainly wasn’t worried about his actors having good chemistry, always a key ingredient with a buddy picture. “Tracy just oozes chemistry,” he says with a hearty laugh. “He could have chemistry with a ceramic ashtray. Bruce loved him. He kept calling him kid, even though Tracy’s over 40, so there’s not really that big an age difference. But I think calling him kid meant Bruce liked him.”

Smith insists that he didn’t have any problems communicating with Willis, at least once he realized that Willis wasn’t going to do anything that he felt was out of his comfort zone. Smith illustrates the issue with an unbelievably raunchy metaphor involving a detailed description of oral sex, then teasingly said, “Try and get that into your old-media story.” I asked him if he could offer a PG-13 version of the story.

“Put it this way,” he said. “On the first day of shooting, I started to mess with Bruce, trying to get him to do something crazy, and he took out his gun and went bang — and shot me in the head. His point was pretty obvious. He’s done this part so many times that he knows what works and what doesn’t. He’s the caretaker of the Bruce Willis persona. He’s been a star for 25 years while most of his peers have fallen by the wayside, so he knows what works for his image. Basically, we all tried to make him laugh, figuring if we got Bruce just to smile once we’ve have something to tell our kids about.”

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Kevin Smith: I almost wanted to “curl up in an asylum” when Southwest controversy was brewing

Q: So does that mean we can expect you to do another movie with them?

KS: It was easy this time. I don’t know what it would be like if I went in with something I wrote, or let’s say something I didn’t write but wanted to write. They were talking about “Hit Somebody,” the hockey movie I wanted to make based on the Warren Zevon song. And I said, “I know you like me right now. But I sweat blood for this. If you say you’re committing to it then you’re saying you’re greenlighting this movie.” So we said we’ll talk.

Q: What’s “Hit Somebody” actually about?

KS: It’s not a movie about the NHL. It’s a movie about the game, and it’s a movie about Canada. I look at it and keep describing as what I’m going for as the “Forrest Gump” of hockey movies. Not flat-out funny stuff I’ve always done. It’s a more serious comedy.

Q: If you get that one going, does that preclude you from coming on to direct another studio comedy that already has a script written?

KS: There are about five scripts that Warner Bros. has handed me that they’re interested in. One of them is with Tracy [Morgan]. The romantic in me wants to paint it as a “Platoon”-like battle for one soul, a battle between Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe. But it’ll come down to what happens next. If best-case scenario, I’m shooting “Hit Somebody” by the end of the year, then what am I going to do between now and then? Maybe nothing. Or I can multi-task and spin another plate while waiting for it to come together. And there’s also “Red State” [a dark political drama he’s written]. There’s some very interested money that wasn’t interested a week ago, before “Cop Out” came out.

Frame’s wide releases, Warner Bros.’ buddy comedy “Cop Out,” starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan, as well as Overture’s horror-thriller pic “The Crazies,” turned in solid estimates with $18.6 million and $16.5 million, respectively.

Kevin also mentions that the WB was very pleased with the weekend’s take, especially the rise in ticket sales on Saturday, which is always an excellent sign that a movie was well-received:

Thanks for all the well-wishes. Got called by happy WB big guns. 35% spike on Saturday means good things. Thanks for the support! #CopOut

Let’s hope one of those “good things” is a chance for “Hit Somebody” to become a reality with the WB. Of course, competition always gets tougher when new movies hit theaters next weekend, but that doesn’t mean you can’t see the film again, or spread the word to your friends and co-workers this week. When you’re having trouble getting into work mode on Monday, let folks know you saw “Cop Out” and that it’s hilarious. Let’s just see if we can’t rake in a few more bucks. If bad weather kept you indoors over the weekend, treat yourself to a movie this week as a reward to yourself for all that digging. “Cop Out” is now playing all over the place.