So I spent the next two days trimming the length down to 120 pages, then turned it over to Mosier.

First test passed: Mosier loved it.

Gonna make some more trims in the first thirty pages, and turn it in to the Brothers Weinstein on Monday, hopefully.

AN INTERVIEW WITH ZAK KNUTSON

BY CHRIS GRAVES

CHRIS GRAVES: For those who do not know, what is your background and how were you introduced to the world of View Askew and Kevin Smith?

ZAK KNUTSON: I was working on a television series called FREAKY LINKS for Fox. The show was horrible and was going to be cancelled any day. The assistant coordinator on the show got a job offer to work on, what was then called, V.A. # 5 (JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK). All that I knew about it was that it was a Kevin Smith movie and Ben Affleck and Matt Damon were in it and it was going to be 5 months of work. Which means a lot if you work in the world of film production. She brought me onto the show and I struck up a great relationship with Kevin’s assistant and mother-in-law, Gail, and the post production supervisor, Monica Hampton. Gail got me through production and Monica hired me as the visual effects assistant for the post production phase after another guy bailed out to work on another gig. Lucky me…they seemed to like me for some reason.

CG: Can you tell me about Chop Shop Entertainment? What was the basis for it’s creation and will you eventually expand into producing feature films instead of just documentaries and behind the scenes material?

ZK: Chop Shop was officially formed for CLERKS 2. Joey Figueroa and I had wanted to do this for a long time. We’ve known each other for about 12 years. I’m a big DVD geek. I love extra features and director commentaries. When we did the CLERKS X DVD, Joey and I had such a great time working on it that we wanted to continue it. I want to get something straight out there for people though, we (Joey and I) were basically crew for that doc and DVD. Phil Benson was really the brains behind doing SNOWBALL EFFECT. We put in our 2 cents, but it was really Phil Benson’s baby. Joe and I learned so much though, we wanted to do the same thing for the CHASING AMY DVD. We shot some stuff for it, but it’s been wrapped up in the Miramax/Disney/Weinstein Company break-up.

When GREEN HORNET was happening, Joe and I came up with the idea for webisodes and a possible doc on the DVD. Doing that stuff on our off time while we would have been shooting in Prague. We thought that we could then turn that footage into a calling card for getting more work and possibly forming, what would now be, Chop Shop Entertainment. With CLERKS 2, we had over a year to prep for it. We got Kevin and Scott Mosier involved, and pitched them ideas that they liked. We didn’t want to do just the standard studio EPK stuff. We wanted our work to be worthy of a Kevin Smith DVD. We wanted to make stuff that the fans would love and take it to the next level. That next level was the TRAIN WRECK Webisodes. We want to do that same thing for other filmmakers and other studios. We want to take DVD content and internet webisodes to a level of great entertainment marketed to it’s target audience.

We do DVD content and documentaries, but we also wanna do television and feature films. We wanna produce all kinds of content. We wanna do it all. We’ve got some things working, but I don’t wanna jinx it. You will know as soon as I know.

CG: I’ve read that you started out as an actor in the early 1990’s, appearing on such shows as THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR, COACH, and THE JOHN LARROQUETTE SHOW. What were your experiences like on those television programs?

ZK: Acting is great. I really enjoy it, but it’s really difficult to make a decent living at it without becoming a manic depressive. I learned a lot from working on COACH. Craig T. Nelson was a great teacher for young actors. He was pretty quiet on set, but you just needed to watch the guy and you could pick up the smallest things about timing and how to hit jokes to get that extra laugh out of it. He could also make it be dramatic without being cheesy (tough for a sitcom). Plus, the most professional guy I had worked with up until that point. That guy has done it all, and is still doing it. He’s Mr. Incredible for fuck-sake. I am nowhere near as talented as some of those guys that I worked with. But I hope that I learned things from them that I can use with other people.

CG: When and why did you decide to branch off from acting and start working behind the scenes on television and film productions?

ZK: On set as an actor, I found myself paying more attention to what was going on behind the camera. It was fascinating. I knew nothing about that stuff until I walked onto a set for the first time. I was a virgin that turned into a whore, as far as production goes. Lights, cameras, rigging crews, grips, gaffers. and sound. I just wanted to learn it all. I got obsessed. I decided one day that I was gonna work “behind the scenes” and learn as much as I could. So, I got a gig as a Set PA on the movie SPEED. I spent 4 months on the 105 freeway with Sandra Bullock and never looked back. As much as I have learned, the more I realize I don’t know shit, and Scott Mosier reminds me of it…ALL THE FUCKING TIME!!! It’s one of the things I like about making movies. Your always able to learn something you didn’t know before about the process.

CG: I thought that the CLERKS 10th anniversary documentary, THE SNOWBALL EFFECT, was by far one of the best ever done on a film and filmmaker. Whose idea was it to make it and are there any interesting pieces of footage left out of the finished documentary, besides what was on the deleted scenes section of the dvd? In your opinion, could THE SNOWBALL EFFECT be turned into a PRIVATE PARTS / MAN ON THE MOON kind of biographical feature film, with the rest of the View Askew history that came after CLERKS included as well?

ZK: SNOWBALL EFFECT was Phil Benson’s idea. I was his assistant on JERSEY GIRL, and when he told me about it, I beat him over the head to do it and to bring me on to work on it. I saw CLERKS in the theater when it came out. I was stoned and drunk and it opened my eyes to indie film. I thought that story should be told and the DVD was the best place to do it. That being said, I don’t think that there are any real stories that we left out that aren’t on the DVD.

SNOWBALL being done as a PRIVATE PARTS kind of movie I don’t think would really do anything that the documentary hasn’t already done. I think SNOWBALL answers all of the questions and tells the story the best possible way, from the mouths of all that were involved. I don’t know about the fans but I would rather see Kevin work on an original story from his imagination than see something that he has already lived and told before in movie form. I wanna watch RANGER DANGER!!!

CG: What is your relationship like in terms of working with SPIDER-MAN star James Franco? You’ve co-produced as well as filling in other positions on two movies he’s written and directed, THE APE and GOOD TIME MAX. How did this collaboration come about?

ZK: Dave Klein, the director of photography from CLERKS, CHASING AMY, and CLERKS 2, hired me for the line producing gig on THE APE, which James Franco directed. Dave told (Scott) Mosier that he was looking for a cheap line producer. Mosier told him to talk to me cause we were on the end of the JERSEY GIRL post production. I met with Dave and Vince Jolivette at Dave’s house. I promptly told both of them that I have no experience doing this, there will be times that I won’t know what the fuck I’m doing, but I work cheap and you won’t find anyone who will work harder for you than me. Those bastards bought it and hired my big green ass.

Dave told me later that I was the only person he ever interviewed that basically told him “don’t hire me cause I don’t know shit, but I’m a hard worker”. Dave and Vince became really good friends of mine during that shoot, and Vince brought me on for GOOD TIME MAX, which is at the Tribeca Film Festival right now.

My job was to try to be able to get James and Dave everything they needed to shoot the film crew and equipment-wise. GOOD TIME MAX was a bitch of a shoot. It was alot of those horrible independent film shoot story you have ever heard about. We shot that flick on the tightest of tight budgets and it looks better than it should. I still don’t know how we pulled it off. Dave and James really did a nice job pulling it all together. James has come a long way as a director since we did THE APE, and you don’t really wanna piss off The Goblin when it’s his cash your fucking around with. James finances all of those films out of his own pocket. That guy puts his money where his mouth is, something that he believes in. I admire him for doing that. Something that can’t be said for most young actor/directors out there. James is also a really talented actor. If anyone gets the chance, watch FREAKS AND GEEKS on DVD and JAMES DEAN. You can see the guy do his stuff outside of the SPIDER-MAN machine.

CG: How was the experience like providing the voice for both The C.L.I.T. in JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK and Julie Dwyer’s father in the THE LOST SCENE cartoon from the CLERKS 10th anniversary dvd?

ZK: I love me some voice over work. You don’t have to shower or shave. The C.L.I.T. was just something that I recorded in the offices of JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK and was just happy to be asked to do it. Julie Dwyer’s dad was cool for me cause I saw CLERKS when it was in theaters, and it was kinda like I got to play a part in the original CLERKS.

CG: If and when there might be a CLERKS 3, will the Sexy Stud finally be legally married in New Jersey to Kinky Kelly? How did you get approached for this role and has it haunted you yet since the CLERKS 2 theatrical release?

ZK: I think that Kinky Kelly and The Sexy Stud would be living in Mexico because of the relaxed laws on inter-species erotica. Plus its a decent place for those two to make a living for obvious reasons. It would have to be somewhere in Baja though. The water is warm and the drinks are cold.It really hasn’t haunted me. I do get recognized sometimes, but its usually in 7-11’s for some reason. I get free drinks sometimes when I go out with my friends. Being 6′4, I think I scare the shit out of most people that might wanna fuck with me. Most people are pretty nice though and just wanna hand shake and say a kind word. I don’t have any problems with that.

CG: What was your fondest memory from behind the scenes of CLERKS 2? Is there a favorite TRAIN WRECK video of yours? And will the remaining TRAIN WRECK footage be used for the CLERKS 2 10th anniversary dvd?

ZK: My fondest memory just being able to hang out with my friends everyday for almost a year and make a movie about it. When we shot the flick in Buena Park, Joe and I lived at our best friend Jon’s house, which was like 5 miles away. Both of us grew up in Orange County, so it was cool shooting in your own back yard. The Burger King we shot in was right next to a union that my aunt worked in for 30 years. I used to go to that place as a kid to play Pac Man. I never in my life figured that one day I would be there in leather acting like I was fucking a donkey.

My favorite TRAIN WRECK would have to be the Cannes standing “O” bit. Just because it was so special.

The Weinstein Company has about 3 hours of TRAIN WRECKS that weren’t put on the DVD (sorry about that). They will probably use them for future releases of the DVD. They live forever on the net and Youtube though.

CG: Do you have any new projects coming up?

ZK: We just finished some webisodes for, THE ART OF TRAVEL. Quick Stop Entertainment is putting the webisodes up. It’s a cool little movie with a great crew behind it. We have alot of stuff in the fire at the moment but nothing that is ready to be announced yet. Hopefully, soon…. (wink wink)

CG: What is your favorite View Askew/Kevin Smith flick (CLERKS 2 excluded)?

ZK: CHASING AMY. It used to be MALLRATS, but the older I get the more I fall in love with CHASING AMY. I think it’s a pretty great fucking flick.

CG: And finally, do you hope to be included in some aspect, be it acting and/or behind the scenes, with the next three (the horror flick RED STATE, the still untitled Rosario Dawson romantic comedy, and the ever mysterious “special” tenth View Askew movie) Kevin Smith films?

ZK: Fuck yeah. Chop Shop wants to be involved in all of Kev’s movies. I would love to act in another one of Kevin’s movies. I hope he would consider using me again as an actor, but this time with clothes on and without the donkey. My mother has been through enough hell already. I’d love for her to be able to see a movie I’m in without having to cover her eyes and then have to go to church afterward to pray for my soul. But being in RED STATE, the comedy, or the mysterious 10th flick would be pretty fucking cool. Especially if Chop Shop can do the DVD and internet webisodes. It would be pretty damn cool.

Finished a script a few minutes ago. The comedy. 146 pages. I’ll spend tomorrow taming it down to 120 pages or so. It’s really funny, really dirty, and really touching stuff. Granted, I’m biased.

Now, onto “Red State”…

Well, not now. First I’m gonna sleep. Then, I’ll take some down-time to work on this current bad boy before launching into the “Red State” script.

AN INTERVIEW WITH VINCENT PEREIRA

BY CHRIS GRAVES

Chris Graves: For those who do not know, what is your background and how were you introduced to the world of View Askew and Kevin Smith?

Vincent Pereira: My background is I was a tall, quiet, angry, and introverted high schooler who was obsessed with horror flicks and who got a job stocking the shelves at the Quick Stop- albeit a tall, quiet, angry and introverted high schooler who was obsessed with horror flicks AND film and filmmaking since I was in grade school. So here I was, working at the Quick Stop after school as a junior in High School, when Kevin was hired to man the registers at both the convenience and video stores. At first, Kevin seemed almost as quiet, angry, and unapproachable as I was, and sometimes downright snotty (I still remember the day I had asked him to hold some new action movie for me because my dad wanted to see it, but Kevin went ahead and rented it off to a customer instead, and when I confronted him about it a little bit annoyed his response was, “What am I, your mother?”), but before too long we cut through all that bullshit and developed a rapour overour mutual love of David Lynch’s TWIN PEAKS, and a friendship was born.

CG: How did you come to be known as the unofficial “View Askew Historian”?

VP: I think it’s because I have a good memory and recall of minutia that other folks normally forget. I tend to pay attention to little details and soak them in and most people don’t do that, I suppose.

CG: What was your first reaction to Mr. Smith when you met at the Quick Stop? And what was your favorite flick (Slacker excluded) that the two of you saw at the Angelica Theater, after working at the store all those years ago?

VP: At first we didn’t really get along, but then we realized that the Thapers (the owners of the Quick Stop) were playing us off against each other. They would tell me that Kevin was complaining to them that I wasn’t working hard enough or whatever, so I figured him to be a snitch. Turns out it wasn’t the case, he didn’t give a shit what I did (or didn’t) do there, and after that we got on just fine.

As for our favorite film that we saw together at the Angelica, I dunno what Kevin’s was, but mine was probably Abel Ferrera’s BAD LIEUTENANT- although my car at the time was broken into while we were watching the film (a midnight screening). As I recall the thieves stole some of Kevin’s money, but they were kindly enough to leave his journal literally sitting on the hood of my car so at least he didn’t lose any of his written-down ideas and notes (some of which found their way not only into CLERKS but later CHASING AMY).

CG: Mr. Smith has said many times before that you were an integral part in getting Clerks made. What was your first reaction to the first draft of Clerks? Is it true that it didn’t seem like a comedy at all, but more like a weird David Lynch-esque drama?

VP: No, the script pages themselves were always comedic. It was the original concept that wasn’t a comedy, but more of a David Lynch-type film about a guy working the midnight to 6 AM shift at an all-night convenience store and the weird people he meets and how he gets through this strange night. Kevin had written a one-page synopsis for that, titled IN CONVENIENCE, but by the time he actually started writing script pages, the comedy just poured out.

He gave me a big bunch of pages that were only in temporary order- he was writing individual scenes with the characters at that point, not a point-A to point-B narrative as such. I loved the material, although it was obvious that some of it was unfilmable at his budget- specifically, a subplot involving the fired mop boy/sniper at the convenience store who takes refuge on a roof overlooking the local bank, and was to take shots at Dante when he goes there to deposit money for the Quik Stop, all while Randal watches the event unfold live on the television news in the Quik Stop…

Although said “angry mop boy” character was clearly based on me and I’d have loved to see myself so memorably immortalized in CLERKS, I swallowed my pride and pointed out to Kev that I doubted he’d ever be able to film something that complex on such a low-budget, so it was dropped. A few other dropped scenes included a bit with a JFK conspiracy nut who visits the video store, my favorite *EVER* unfilmed Kevin scene- “Scruples the Cat”- which wound up in different forms in several other of Kevin’s scripts only to be dropped from them as well, and a long scene where Dante carries an old ladies’ groceries home for her at night. The later was an incredibly funny scene, but again- doing an extended exterior nighttime shoot with a moving camera and pages of dialogue just seemed undoable given the CLERKS budget, so the scene was dropped early on.

CG: Any entertaining anecdotes about the filming of Clerks that might not of been shared yet? And what was your reaction to the film’s success?

VP: To be honest re: anecdotes, I can’t think of anything that hasn’t already been said. As for my reaction to the success, I know I’m supposed to say it was a shock or surprise, but for me at least it really was not. I knew the script was great, and I knew the cut of the film was really clever, incredibly well-written, and funny beyond belief, so when it kept going further and further- first, the Village Voice write-up, then accepted at Sundance, then Miramax buying it- my reaction was, duh. I figured good work was SUPPOSED to be rewarded, so everything that came to CLERKS didn’t surprise me at all, it made perfect sense. Things are supposed to happen the way they did with CLERKS- what surprises me is when really good films are NOT successful, or when bad ones are.

CG: What was the genesis of your film “A Better Place”? Where did the idea come from and what were your thoughts on the finished film, having work with a limited budget? Anything you would’ve done differently with a larger budget?

VP: The “genesis” was, Kevin filmed CLERKS when he was 22 and I was 20, so I put a goal in sight that I wanted to be shooting my own feature when I was 22, too. I had no idea what I wanted it to be, though, until one night in I believe the late summer or fall of 1993 when I caught a 20/20 (I believe) piece about the Jamie Bulger murder case in England- the todler who was picked up by two older boys at a mall then taken to nearby train tracks and murdered. Now, I had always been intrigued by stories of youthful killers- something about somebody that young doing something that devastatingly profound always resonated with and disturbed me. Seeing that piece about the Bulger case just brought all that back into my head, and it just hit me that THIS would be what I’d make a film about. Mind you, not a film about the actual case itself, but the case inspired me to reach deep within myself and expose all of that pent up teenage angst and rage I had growing up. So, inspired by the Bulger case, I took all that pent up rage and sat down and wrote 10-pages of what was to become A BETTER PLACE.

I remember giving those pages to Kevin a couple days later, and he responded really, REALLY favorably to them. Then, he went off on the festival tours for CLERKS and I went into deep thinking mode and the rest of the story germinated in my mind. Several months later, Kevin was home for a bit in between fest showings of CLERKS, and he came into RST Video one afternoon while I was working and basically said, “You know Vinnie, those pages you showed me were the start of something really good. If you finish it, I now have the means to finance it”, and that was that. I was given the kick-start I needed, and I went ahead and turned those opening pages into a first-draft script over the next six months, which I then took to the set of MALLRATS and handed over to Kevin and Scott, and the rest is history.

I’m very happy with the finished film. An interesting thing happens when you go from idea – to script – to screen: What ends up on screen is its own entity and isn’t identicle to what it is you originally had in your head… But then something magical happens- there’s a mood that permeates all three, so even though the final film is its own beast, it’s still connected and it still feels right. To me, that’s what matters- A BETTER PLACE feels right in its final form, despite the budget limitations and whatever technical flaws there may be. The mood and feel of the film match what I always had in mind, even if 100% of the images in my head didn’t make it on screen. I have no regrets and really like the film, and I truly think I’d still like even if it wasn’t “my baby”, so to speak.

CG: What have you been up to since the DVD release of “A Better Place”?

VP: Living my life, writing, etc. I worked for over a year and a half on an aborted attempt to adapt Clive Barker’s short story PIG BLOOD BLUES into a feature. When that fell apart, to be honest it put me into a pretty bad depression, and then my dad unexpectantly got sick and died only a few months later which made it worse. My personal life was thrown into a pretty big upheaval during that time. PIG BLOOD BLUES is now going ahead without me, albeit with some of my ideas in the final script for which I’ll be paid.

That’s the only concrete project I was working on- everything else has been personal stuff. Right now, though, I’m working on two very dark, very indie scripts. One started out as BROKEN BOY and I was on a roll with it last fall, but then I hit a snag and am not quite sure where to go with it in the final act. I have a few different ideas, I need to work them out in my head and see which works best dramatically and thematically.

The other is a fairly straight-forward dramatic thriller called THE TRAIL. It just popped into my head a couple weeks ago while I was bike riding along a 9-mile stretch of the Henry Hudson Trail which is right near where I live here in New Jersey. I’dalways thought it would be neat to do a film set along that stretch and on this particular day, something must have been right because the entire thing just popped into my head out of the blue and it’s all very simple and elegant in a way. I really think it will be my next project, it can be done on a very low budget and while it has a European sensibility to it and gets quite dark and violent, it could also be fairly commercial with the right audiences. The lead character has a lot of me in him, he’s kind of a dreamer and observer. And after that, when I come up with the appropriate final act for what is tentatively titled BROKEN BOY, I have a feeling that A BETTER PLACE, THE TRAIL, and BROKEN BOY (or whatever it ends up being called) will all fit together as kind of “youth violence” trilogy, or maybe the better description would be “troubled youth trilogy”. The stories of all three are completely different but share similar themes and sensibilities and they’re all very small, personal projects. I’m kind of jazzed about having them fit together in that way if these two new ones happen, which I hope they will.

CG: It is somewhat known that you are a horror movie fan. Did Kevin write a horror script for you to direct a few years ago? And what was your reaction to the news that Kevin’s next project would be a horror film?

VP: I’ve been a horror film fan for about as long as I can remember- in fact, my mom has saved pictures I drew in crayon when I was like 5 years old that were images from JAWS which I had seen on TV. Horror movies got me interested in movies in general, and by extension, they got me interested in filmmaking because I always wanted to know, “How’d they do that?”

When I was a senior in High School, I asked Kevin if he’d write me something to do as my major end of the year project for art class. My only stipulation was that I wanted it to be horror, and set in the old ruins out at the end of Sandy Hook. Kev came back with this intense, 80-page or so religious-themed horror epic inspired somewhat by Bergman’s THE SEVENTH SEAL that was WAY beyond my means at the time. I mean, the dialogue was just crazy brilliant, and there was no way I could have mounted that on VHS tape for my high school art class, so the script was forgotten and actually misplaced for several years.

Then, maybe 5 or 6 years ago, my dad found a print out of it among a bunch of my old high school notebooks in our basement. I re-read it and thought it might be worth it to try and turn it into a feature, and Kevin gave me his blessing to go ahead and see what I could do with it. It had to be re-written as some of the concepts and ideas had actually found their way into DOGMA, so I gave it a go. Although I had some ideas that I thought were good, in the end as I was never able to properly connect with it, so I hit a block and abandoned it.

As for RED STATE, I’m really looking forward to seeing what Kevin comes up with. The first writings of his that I ever read were always on the dark side, so for me at least this will be something of a return to that.

CG: What is “Autograph” and is it still in development?

VP: AUTOGRAPH is my “giallo” script, inspired by the early murder/mystery thrillers of my favorite filmmaker, Dario Argento. It’s basically my love letter to him, and to film as a medium. As for being “in development”, I guess in that I now have a draft of it that I flat-out love and would love to do as a future project. It took me a long time to write the first draft- 3 years!- and after that, I was kind of burned out on it. Scott Mosier gave me some great notes but I was so exhausted with just having finished it finally that I couldn’t muster the energy to impliment his notes, so at the time I asked a friend- Pete DeWolf- to do it for me. I have Pete my first draft script, along with Scott’s notes, and asked him if he could do anything with it. Pete was able to work with Scott’s notes and we did two more drafts of the script together, but it still didn’t seem quite right and maybe the time wasn’t right, so I put the script aside.

About two years ago, I dug it out again and started anew. With a couple years of hindsight I was able to approach the script from a fresh perspective and really tighten it up and make it work. I really love what I’ve come up with in these recent drafts- the plotline is basically the same as the first draft I wrote way back when, but the execution is so much better. I still think it’s too “big” for me to try to do just yet- it’s a fairly complex, commercial script, and after all, I only have one $50,000 budgeted angry indie feature to my name- but if THE TRAIL gets made and gets me some attention, AUTOGRAPH will definitely be in my future.

CG: Do you have any new projects coming up?

VP: Just the ones I’ve mentioned, hopefully something will happen with them.

CG: What is your favorite View Askew/Kevin Smith flick?

VP: CHASING AMY, so far.

CG: And finally, is there anything you’d like to add that maybe people haven’t heard yet, regarding the world of View Askew?

VP: Off hand, nothing really comes to mind.

…Spent almost a month up in Vancouver, working on the “Reaper” pilot for the CW. Apparently, the show turned out well, and is testing great. The network seems to really dig it, so there’s an excellent chance you’ll be able to peep the show in the fall.

Was weird, but interesting, shooting someone else’s script. I feel I did a pretty good job (elevating, not simply executing), but ultimately, it’s not for me. I’m a writer, first and foremost; that’s where my heart lies. Still, it was a worthwhile exercise to take (and about the only exercise I’ve done in a year), and all seem happy with the results. I had a great crew, got to shoot with Dave Klein again, and worked with some actors who I wouldn’t mind taking into features…

Following the wrap of “Reaper”, I went over to the UK for a pair of Q&A’s (both really great shows), then hit Jersey for a few days to play some poker and see the Devils kick off Game One against Tampa Bay in the first round of playoffs (which they ultimately won). I’ll be heading back east again this week, primarily to do a panel on comic book movies (odd, considering I’ve never made one myself… yet) at the Tribeca Film Festival, but especially so I can drop in on Game Five of the second round of playoffs, as the Devils battle it out against Ottawa.

The big news from our camp that went public last month was in regards to View Askew’s first stab (pun intended) at the horror genre – as I finally let slip with what we’re planning. Entitled “Red State”, we hope to be shooting it this fall. Once I finish the script for the follow-up comedy we’ll be doing (I started writing that last month), I’ll dig in on the “Red State” script, with an eye toward shooting it first, then a month or so later, starting pre-production on the comedy – our ninth film. Mos and I are planning something special for our tenth flick (no – not an Askewniverse picture); more on that in the near future…

“Super Max” is Goyer’s take on supervillain incarceration in the DC Universe. Revolving around a wrongly convicted Green Arrow being whisked away to the super max prison for out-of-control heroes and villains, the man is forced to face a number of inmates he put there.

Goyer likens the film to “Alcatraz” – “He has to team up with, in some cases, some of the very same villains he is responsible for incarcerating in order to get out and clear his name. Of course, tons of people try to kill him while he’s in there. We’ve populated the prison with all sorts of B and C villains from the DC Universe…but they’re all going to be there under their human names and no one is wearing a costume, but there will be a lot of characters with powers and things like that.”

Goyer, developing the project with writer Justin Marx, says the Green Arrow will only make a small appearance in costume – “He’s Green Arrow for the first 10 minutes of the movie, and then he’s arrested and his secret identity is revealed”.

Joe Utichi writes: “Rotten Tomatoes UK can exclusively reveal that Kevin Smith’s next project – a horror movie – is called “Red State”. Up until now Smith has revealed little about the film other than the fact it’s a horror movie and it’ll be decidedly less joke-y than his back-catalogue. But, in addition to the title, Smith was keen to give us a head’s up on the plot of the film.

If you’ve seen any of his “An Evening With…” DVDs, you’ll know how much fun it can be to sit down in an audience and listen to “Clerks II” director Kevin Smith talk. In London this past week with his family – his daughter Harley is missing Johnny Depp’s daughter Lily-Rose while he’s in town working on “Sweeney Todd” so they arranged an international play-date – Smith took to the stage of the Prince Charles Cinema just off Leicester Square for two of his infamous four-hour Q&As.

But even in the relatively small company of five hundred that packed into the cinema on each night, getting a question in proved difficult as Smith worked his trademark tangential style around topics as diverse as his favourite dinosaur, why he hasn’t yet seen Firefly and what happens to a Dachshund post-coitus.

So RT-UK naturally leapt at the chance to spend some time with Smith one-on-one while he was in town and he graciously allowed us a whole two hours to riff on whatever came to mind. We’ll be sharing the full conversation very soon but we did want to rush this item to your attention right away.

UK audiences recently saw documentary journalist Louis Theroux spend time with members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, a controversial church group made largely of members of the Phelps family and run by preacher Fred Phelps. Infamous in America for taking a supremely homophobic stance and for picketing the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq, the group see media interviews as a platform for airing their views and the word of their founder, Fred Phelps.

“That dude has always fascinated me and he’s really informed the horror movie that I’m working on,” Smith told us, “The movie’s called ‘Red State’ and it’s very much about that subject matter, that point of view and that position taken to the absolute extreme. It’s certainly not Phelps himself but it’s very much inspired by a Phelps figure.”

But while Smith is convinced that “horror” is the right definition for the film, he’s not so sure audiences will agree. “To me there’s all kinds of horror, and killing someone’s not the absolute worst thing you could do to another human being,” he said, “The death in a horror movie has always been the money shot in a very exploitative manner. Stabbing somebody and splashing blood all over them is the equivalent to some dude exploding over some broad’s face.

“And to me, too, the notion of using a Phelps-like character as a villain, as horrifying and scary as that guy can be, there’s even something more insidious than him that lurks out there in as much as a public or a government that allows it and that’s the other thing that I’m trying to examine in a big, big way. It’s weird because for a few months I’ve been saying ‘horror movie’ and technically it is, but it’s also not a very traditional horror movie in the sense that people have been asking me, ‘Is it a slasher movie? Is it like the Japanese horror flicks?’ It’d be much easier to just show it to them when I’m done and be like, ‘This is what I meant.’ At which point I’m sure there’ll be people saying, ‘This ain’t a horror movie!’ But to me, it is.”

Smith is planning to write the film in the next few months before shooting it later in the year. “We’re going to shoot it somewhere in the middle of the country, in a true red state.” And it’s not the only feature project on the horizon, as Smith told us he’s in the middle of writing a comedy to shoot in the winter. “It takes place in the middle of winter in Minnesota so we have to wait for snow,” he said.

Our full conversation with Smith, including more about “Red State”, is on its way, but for now why not have your say on the forums or visit Smith on the web at silentbobspeaks.com and viewaskew.com.

Many, many thanks to Kevin for being so generous with his time, on Good Friday of all days, and to his wonderful assistant Gail Stanley we are enormously indebted for the late nights she’s pulled putting us in touch across time-zones.”

I recently got the chance to sit down 1-on-1 with the talented, extremely witty and all around cool dude, Kevin Smith. He is doing the rounds promoting his latest feature CATCH AND RELEASE where he plays Jennifer Garner’s roomie in a scene stealing performance. He seems to be doing the actor gig quite a bit lately with this, a small role in TMNT (voice work in case you were wondering) and the recent pilot for MANCHILD which is the US version of the hit British series starring Mr. Giles, Anthony Stewart Head of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE fame. And don’t forget, he will be wisecracking his way through LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD, the latest DIE HARD installment with the one and only Bruce Willis.

Well, the question is, when will he get back behind the camera? The rumor was that he was working on a horror film. Yep, you heard right, “It’s all in my head, I haven’t sat down and started tapping away yet.” When I asked what type of horror he is looking to do, he asked, “Did you ever see RACE WITH THE DEVIL? It’s like that.” Many others had asked him about zombies, to that he added, “Is that what a horror movie is to people? Like, just zombies? It’s such a wide genre, its wide open… In a world where 28 DAYS LATER is a horror movie and THE SHINING is a horror movie. Those are two very disparate films… It’s a wide open genre and very tough to pin down. It’s so odd to me that people immediately assume that you are talking a zombie or a monster.”

I for one am a major fan of Mr. Smith, and after talking horror with him, I guarantee that he’s got a terrific grasp on what makes a great horror film. He understands that there is more than one kind of horror and it’s not just jumping on the bandwagon of the recent trend. I am eagerly awaiting his contribution to a genre which means a whole lot to yours truly. And if you haven’t seen RACE WITH THE DEVIL, I urge you to check it out on DVD. See what you can do with a great script, top-notch actors and a truly suspenseful premise. And thank whomever you want to thank that Mr. Smith has NO plans to just remake it. You can read more on my conversations with Kevin Smith very soon.

Filmmaker Kevin Smith touched down in Australia this week to promote the bejesus out of his comedy “Clerks 2″. Moviehole’s Mark Bennett – an out and out horror buff – was so keen to find out about Smith’s upcoming horror film (announced it a couple of weeks back), that he decided to tie him to a chair, and threatened to play his scenes from “Vulgar” on loop, if he didn’t give up the goods.

“Next up I want to do a horror movie. I just think it would be kinda interesting – for me at least – to go left. I’ve made seven comedies, or variation thereof, and some people would argue that none of them are funny. But it would be nice to make a horror movie. An intentional horror movie, not like Jersey Girl. [much laughter]. It’s a genre that I grew up watching on VHS and on cable when I was a kid”, said Smith.

“No jokes and stuff, not like Scary Movie 4. There are people that do that really well, like Edgar Wright with Shaun of the Dead, but I don’t want to make a comedic one, I want to make a straight-forward horror movie.

“It’ll be a bit of slasher, but I’m kinda looking more at … you remember that movie Race With The Devil? It’s more kind of in that vein. Or Wicker Man. Something in that vein where it’s creepy and unsettling more than gore.”

Smith says some of his favourite horror movies include “The Shining, Halloween. I’ll pretty much for anything that I came of age watching. You know, the ’70s-’80s slasher genre. The current crop of horror movies not nearly as much. There seems to be a lot of remakes and whatnot. A lot of “Let’s do Texas Chainsaw. Again. And let’s do The Hills Have Eyes again.” I’m sure there’s probably ripe material out there. A lot of things are more horrible than a dude in a mask trying to stab you. [inaudible – something like, You can look it up in the newspaper and pull it out of there]. So I’m kinda going for that. The one thing I’m happy about is the idea that I have, I haven’t seen it done before.”