Also, some potential good news for “Red State”, still set to be the next movie that Kevin goes behind the camera with. Kevin and Scott have not forgotten the project and are continuing to seek funding for the low-budget flick. We’re going to cross our fingers and predict that we’ll have good news on that project in the next couple of months.

Were you there? Got a scoop? Wanna weigh in on your experiences? Drop us a scoop or post a Talkback comment.

So far, no new SModcast yet this week, but Kevin did assure us that the podcast will continue on a regular basis. Going through a flick’s release is a major drain, and we’re guessing Kevin, Scott, and their family and friends are all enjoying some much-needed rest after putting “Zack and Miri” in theaters.

Speaking of which, I caught the flick again out in Las Vegas this past weekend, at the awesome Brenden theater in the Palms casino, and it plays great on a second watch — The gags are just as laugh-out-loud funny and it really allows you to catch some of those rare moments of both humor and drama that you might have missed the first time around — A few of the touching, more dramatic scenes with Rogen and Banks feature some real fine chemisty, and emotion that you just don’t typically see in a raunchy comedy. And man, is it ever raunchy! We recall Kevin’s joy in seeing “Clerks II” make it through with its R intact along with the donkey scene, this one easily outdoes that, and has to be one of the most visually and verbally raunchy R’s in quite some time, possibly ever. We love the fact it made it thru the ratings board, and can’t wait to see what’s in store on the DVD.

“Zack & Miri Make a Porno” is in theaters, and as new stuff rolls out every week, it may get harder to find, so we highly recommend catching it on the big screen again. And keep in mind, all your ticket stubs are good for a nice discount at Laser Blazer, so it’s like getting an extra gift along with a fun few hours at the movies. And hey, for those of you who walked out as soon as the credits kicked in (and shame on you if ya did), there’s even more reason to go back — You missed an awesome mid-credits scene.

We hope you’ll catch the flick one more time, and continue to admire Kevin and View Askew for delivering the movies they want to make, pleasing the fans and breaking new ground every time they pick up their tools and go to work. Let’s hope it’s not long before “Red State” becomes a more tangible reality. We’ll of course keep ya posted.

During his Red Bank appearance last week, Kevin revealed that he’ll be taking a bit of a break of the next six months — While we’ll certainly see him online in various areas, overall appearances and events will be kept at a minimum, as he takes a post-Zack & Miri break. However, the term “break” is really all relative when you look at what’s coming up.

“Zack & Miri Make a Porno” will continue to play North American theaters and then expand worldwide over various release dates. We’ll keep you posted on those dates, and of course an eventual DVD release date, here. As always, the gang put in a TON of work pre-movie to ensure a jam packed DVD, so when that thing eventually shows up next year, there will be a massive documentary and tons more.

“Batman: Cacophony” features three issues, #1 of which is now available. Issues 2 and 3 are “in the can” per se and will arrive on schedule for the remainder of this year. No other comic-related announcements from Kevin at this time.

Watch the News Askew events sidebar on your right, as we’re posting up information on when Kevin and your other favorite View Askew personalities are coming to your town.

Online, Kevin and Scott Mosier will continue to produce weekly editions of SModcast. The popular podcast shows no signs of slowing down, as Kevin recently revealed it’s an excellent time to just hang out with his good friend Scott and spend an hour yakking. We’re just lucky enough to listen in.

Funding for “Red State” will happen though is not yet 100% complete. Production is planned to start in mid-2009 but nothing official as of yet. Kevin feels strongly that this should be his next project, a 180 degree turn from anything that’s come from him before.

Online updates via the WWWBoard, Kevin’s blog site and Myspace/Facebook pages will likely continue as well. These, along with News Askew, will be your sources for the latest announcements from View Askew Productions. Stay tuned, things will be calm for a bit, but we speak from experience: It never stays that way for long.

Quint: One thing that I also really loved about the movie was that it kind of hit me about halfway through that it was celebrating filmmaking. It really is kind of a love letter to making movies. I have to imagine that was intentional from the beginning.

Kevin Smith: Absolutely, I mean really if you take away the porn trappings and the romance, it’s kind of the story of how we made CLERKS to some degree, because it’s about a bunch of knuckleheads making their first film, but it is and it’s always dicey when you make a movie about making a movie, because they tend to be inside baseball and shit like that, but using it and setting it in the world of porn, even in this DIY world of porn, it just takes the light off of it being a movie and really it’s “Oh its just fun.”

Now, wanna hear about “Red State”? The space sci-fi comedy? Here’s the very latest, revealing that the search for funds continues, and there won’t be any movement until at least March of 2009. The way we’re reading this, “Red State” MIGHT get swapped around if the space flick gets fast-tracked, but we’re guessing a lot will depend on how “Zack And Miri” does at the box office. With this good of a buzz, we’re betting that the next project will start up really fast.

Kevin Smith: I’m still trying to find money for Red State, though, admittedly, I haven’t been looking that hard yet, since it’s not something I’m gonna get to ’til March the earliest. Early prospects, however, look dim. Problem is, the flick is bleak. Beyond bleak, even. Remember how bleak Dark Knight was? This flick makes the bleakness level in that flick seem Beverly Hills Chihuahua bleak. Sadly, while the flick’s bleaker than Dark Knight, it’s also not nearly as good as Dark Knight. Or as commercial. Or commercial at all, really. The commercial prospects for Red State are not good. The only chance it’ll have at the box office would be if it caught a water cooler-kinda buzz out of a film festival. So when you go down the checklist (overtly bleak, unlikeable characters making horrible decisions, unhappy ending in which everyone dies, a director of questionable talent who’s never worked in this genre before), you can see why folks aren’t whipping out their check books.

The question, then, would be “Why bother?” For some reason, I feel like I’ve gotta make this flick. Part of the reason is that I never really feel like a filmmaker most days; more of a writer who gets to direct his own flicks. Trying my hand at another genre that’s 180 degrees away from anything else I’ve ever done might finally answer the question (for me) of whether or not I truly am a filmmaker, or just the guy who makes the dick and fart jokes movies. I suspect it’s the latter. I guess we’ll see. Maybe.

The flick I wanna do after that is a comedy set in space. Unsurprisingly, it’s been 100% easier to find the money for that one – even with only half the script done. It’ll likely cost about double Zack and Miri’s $24million budget, so it’ll be the most expensive flick I’ve ever made. Hopefully, it’s as well-received as Zack and Miri has been so far.

We love reading about Kevin’s determination to get “Red State” made, and we know it’s gonna happen. We just have to see what he can do with that genre.

Of particular interest, Kevin does mention that the long in planning “Ranger Danger” may no longer be made, with the new Sci-Fi comedy sort of a replacement. This makes sense to us, as we’ve heard Kevin say many times in the past he’ll take a completed script and borrow ideas from it for other projects. We’re guessing this new idea is a totally different film, but that he may have borrowed some of those “Ranger Danger” sequences or nuances to help shape this one.

With “Red State” very close to finding all the funding needed, we’re still hopeful to see THAT as the total 180 degree follow-up to “Zack And Miri Make a Porno” — Then, it’d be way cool to see Seth Rogen and other big names return to star in this unnamed sci-fi comedy. Of course, News Askew will be there, every step of the way, as the project develops.

…We asked whether he might start shooting on that soon, to which he replied, “I hope so. We’re still looking for some cash for it ’cause it’s not a really commercial film at all. It’s very bleak and very dark, and there’s no one to root for in the movie, so it’s a real film festival type of film, but it’s not the kind of movie you can take into multiplexes and do a bunch of business with unless it becomes a water cooler type of movie where people start talking about it. So we’ve had trouble finding financing for it, but hopefully that’ll come together soon. Script’s all done. We want to make it for like $5 million in the Midwest and do it with a bunch of unknowns and see what happens. So I mean none of those things add up to people rushing to you with a check. No one’s rushing to give us money for it.”

Since Smith has never made a horror film, many horror fans who are also fans of Smith’s will be expecting something like we haven’t seen before and something truly shocking, since he’s probably built up a lot of ideas of what he’d want to do in a horror movie. “It is definitely a 180 from everything else we’ve done including ‘Zack and Miri’ but at the same time, it’s not like a splatter film, it’s not like slasher balls-to-the-wall gore, it’s more unsettling and disturbing type of horror,” he explained when asked about the direction he plans on taking things in his first horror outing.

So, it seems that there’s still more funding to be acquired before this one can truly get off the ground. If any fans who have contacts are reading this, we sure think this would be a fine investment — Here’s hoping that we’ll have some good news soon and we can see the project start in early 2009 as originally planned. Chances are it’ll be made on the cheap and turn a tidy profit to the lucky investors. As we hear more on “Red State”, we’ll of course kep you posted. As we’ve seen before, project schedules often shuffle around and movie priorities change — Most directors aren’t as forthcoming with their future plans as Kevin, but shuffling projects is quite common and could happen again. But we’re sure hopeful to see another View Askew production head in front of the cameras next year.

“First, I’m going to do a 180 turn and do a horror movie called ‘Red State,’ ” Smith said in an interview Sept. 7 at the Toronto International Film Festival. “It’s going to be a total horror-political-psychological movie without a funny line in it. Then I’m going to do the science-fiction superhero movie. It’s going to be an original superhero that I’ve created. It’s stewing right now. I want to do it, though, and, God willing, it will star Seth Rogen.”

See the full story over at the LA Times website. Kudos to Joblo as well for picking up on this scoop.

1. Clerks, film, available on DVD. Perhaps the most eloquent Star Wars geek on record, director Kevin Smith crafted dialogue about the issue of contract labor on the second Death Star in Star Wars: Episode VI–Return of the Jedi. Collateral damage or deserving collaborators? The debate rages on.