The story goes like this…

Jim Jacks (one of the producers on “Mallrats”) was friends with Richard Anderson – the man who not only portrayed Oscar Goldman on the show, but also controlled the rights to “Six Million Dollar Man”. One day over lunch (during post on “Mallrats”), they asked me if I’d be interested in writing a feature version of the show. I’d been a big fan as a kid (had a bunch of the dolls), so I said “Sure.” They whisked me up to Nina Jacobson’s office in the Black Tower, where I kinda pitched it (though there was nothing to pitch beyond “It’s an origin story…”), and boom – I was hired to write the script.

In the year it took me to turn in a script, Universal had undergone two regime changes: Nina left for Disney, and was replaced by another guy – who was then also replaced by a third guy, to whom I submitted my first draft.

That guy didn’t like the script. At all. His exact quote was “This reads like a comic book.” He meant it as a dis, but I felt rather complimented by the sentiment, and shortly thereafter, wrote my first issue of “Daredevil”.

I haven’t read that script in ten years, but I remember digging the dialogue and some of the ideas I brought to it (bionics were initially developed by the Nazis during their inhuman medical experimentations on concentration camp prisoners). The villain was the prototype Bionic Man – a guy who was more metal than flesh. I recall the climax being something like a robotic/cyborg attack on Washington. It was all pretty over-the-top, circa 1996. Now? It’d be no more dopey than “The Transformers” movie.

Last I heard, they were developing a comedic version of “The Six Million Dollar Man”.

“Six Million Dollar Man” – a writing gig only. Was never intended as the director.

“Green Hornet” – was contracted to write and direct, but wrote it then opted not to make it, as it was too expensive and I wasn’t ready to take on something that big just then.

“Fletch Won” – wrote it and intended to direct, but for nearly five years, Miramax wouldn’t let me cast Jason Lee in the lead as the young Irwin Fletcher. At that point, I lost my passion for it.

“Ranger Danger and the Danger Rangers” – still out there.

The only difference between me and other filmmakers is my candor. When asked questions (whether here on the board or in interviews), I talk about a lot of things I’d like to do (or would’ve liked to have done at one point). A side effect of maintaining an open discourse with the audience is that sometimes, you talk about movies that never manifest. Every filmmaker’s got ’em; but since many of them don’t engage with the audience as frequently and seriously as I do, you just never hear about their whimsies like you do with mine.

Cross off another one of those long-brewing mysteries, folks — Though there’s still a few more questions out there about other projects, past and future. For now, we’re crossing our fingers for production news on “Red State” and “Ranger Danger”, as well as that top-secret super special 10th film he’s got brewing.

“I’ve always been a sucker for “daddy stories” and I think Affleck delivered a solid performance of a single dad trying his best to raise his daughter. It is Kevin Smith’s most sincere movie to date. George Carlin played Affleck’s dad and did a great job in the performance, weighing sincerity with exasperation at the actions of his son throughout the movie. He was great in the film, as should be expected. “

SModcast 55: Naked Butz –


In which our heroes get corny, analyze the father of American obesity, and get a shot of maturity.

• A few more words about George Carlin, and a link to the Newsweek story.

• Incredibly high praise for “The Dark Knight” and “Wall-E”. Both must-see in the theater.

• Another fantastic test screening of “Zack & Miri Make a Porno”, this time in New Mexico: “We tested again in Albuquerque, New Mexico last week (where I did, in fact, make a left turn I knew I shouldn’t have made), and scored almost exactly the same as we did in the Kansas City test screening the month before – which is to say really, really well. A poster and a theatrical trailer should be making their way to theaters soon.”

• Four panels in San Diego confirmed for next month at the con, including one which should debut a clip or two from the new film (in other words, line up REALLY early).

• Crazy 4 Cult II – The coolest art show in the land, coming back on August 22nd. Kevin and Scott will host the event, featuring movie-inspired art for sale.

• On the east coast – Another poker tourny on Saturday July 12th, and of course the big appearance in Red Bank on November 7th. GET YOUR TICKETS NOW BEFORE IT SELLS OUT.

• Smodcast – Back tonight/tomorrow. We’ll have the linkage.

• Finally – If you have not yet ordered our favorite ever piece of Askew swag, get your Monroeville Zombies hockey jersey today. Now in stock!

You’ll of course want to view the entire blog over at Myspace or the official blog.

Seth Rogen (Really) Makes a Porno


Kevin Smith’s upcoming comedy Zack and Miri Make a Porno, with Elizabeth Banks and Seth Rogen, may actually be a porno. No, seriously. The MPAA is trying to slap it with an NC-17 rating, meaning you’d have a tough time seeing it down at the megaplex.

So what’s in this thing that makes it so, like, porny? We asked Seth, and here’s what he said…

“It’s like a romantic comedy,” Rogen told us this week, at the press day for The Pineapple Express, which opens in August. “It’s a romantic relationship movie—with a lot of porn and balls.”

Wait, whose balls? “My balls are not in it,” he clarified.

Still, Smith is fighting for an R rating, as he did when Clerks first got slapped with an NC-17—simply for dirty language. “You can disembowel someone in a youth hostel in Romania, but you can’t show people having sex,” Rogen said. “I think it’s weird.”

If Zack and Miri does get an NC-17, Rogen thinks his hit flicks Knocked Up and Superbad should have, too.

“This is not anything outside of what we’ve done before,” he told us. “The word porno is in the title, and that kind of freaks people out.”

Well, that and the balls, maybe.

Doesn’t look like any new quotes, just more from the MTV Interview. We haven’t heard any definite confirmation from Kevin other than a hint that this may indeed be happening. The MPAA rating process remains one of the most secretive and elusive in ths biz, so we imagine we’ll hear the results of this once the dust has settled. We’ll keep watch for ya.

Busy year for me at the Con this time; I’m doing four different panels, including my usual gig (Friday night, 6:30 to 8:00pm).

No details on the Con’s official site just yet, but we will have the full schedule right here as soon as it’s revealed. We can only assume one of the other panels may be as moderator (perhaps a Heroes or Galactica panel?), and perhaps a few other surprises. The San Diego Comic Con runs July 24-27 and is arguably the best Con in the world. A MAJOR media event for not just comics, but now the latest in film and television as well.

Ben Affleck has now joined the ranks. Ben spent time over the last year traveling to the Democratic Repulic of Congo in the hopes to bring notice to the plight in this region. Tonight, ABC’s “Nightline” will feature a segment with Ben that we hope you’ll all tune in for.

We’ve got the details straight ahead direct off the AP wire. Ben’s also penned an essay which is the first link you’ll see below, followed by several other links to video which you can watch right now.

NEW YORK (AP) — “Nightline” will focus on the humanitarian crisis in the Congo with the help of an unusual correspondent — Ben Affleck.

The 35-year-old actor took a “Nightline” crew on his recent fact-finding mission to Africa with the goal of spreading the word on a story that gets relatively little notice in the United States. His essay airs 11:35 p.m. Thursday on ABC.

He’s been to the Congo three times in the past year. He said his motive was to learn about the war and hunger that have killed thousands of people per month in the past decade in hopes that the outside world would be moved to help, and his celebrity opened some doors.

“It’s fairly clear that in the modern age that there is a currency to celebrity, or celebrity is a currency, really,” Affleck told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “I’ve discovered that you can spend it in a lot of ways, or you can squander it. You can be taxed, as well. I really started thinking long and hard about how to use that currency as long as I had it.”

His representatives approached “Nightline” with the idea of reporting on his journey. Affleck said he was impressed by “Nightline” stories in 2005 where “Hotel Rwanda” actor Don Cheadle visited that country.

“Nightline” executive producer James Goldston admitted to skepticism. ABC News took heat a decade ago for letting Leonardo DiCaprio interview President Clinton, and the idea of a concerned celebrity taking on a world problem has become a news staple.

“I was quite persuaded by how candid he was about the cliche of it, or the potential cliche,” Goldston said.

Affleck deals with that issue in the opening of his essay: “I want to try to bring people along to learn and if they might not tune into this unless there was some celebrity involved in it, either because they’re interested in the celebrity or because they want to see the celebrity kind of make a fool of himself, then so be it,” he says.

He doesn’t act as a reporter, Goldston said. The idea was to present the story as a personal journey, following Affleck as he met with survivors of the conflict, relief officials and even some warlords.

“Nightline” hasn’t done its own story on the Congo since 2002, although Cynthia McFadden recently took a trip to Africa to report on several issues there.

Affleck said one “Nightline” piece isn’t likely to change much, but the goal is to spread the word and hope that people in the United States can identify with some people who are suffering.

Perhaps then they could be moved to help, he said. Affleck hasn’t identified himself with any particular relief organization that is helping the Congo.

He believes people will respond to this approach.

“I don’t think people respond particularly well to being hectored, or being made to feel guilty, or being made to feel as though they’re kind of callow or insensitive for the life they’ve been leading up until then,” he said.

Turning World’s Eyes and Ears to Congo: More Than Four Million Lives Lost in African Country in the Last Decade (GUEST ESSAY by BEN AFFLECK)

PHOTOS: Ben Affleck’s African Journey

Ben Affleck: “Share What I’ve Seen” (On third trip to the Congo, Affleck hopes to “bring people along” the journey.)

“They’re in a Living Hell”: Affleck discusses the devastation

Major kudos to Mr. Affleck for taking the time and effort to bring this dire situation to light here in the USA. Our country needs more like you, sir. Please tune into ABC Nightline at 11:30 PM tonight, and if you have the means, see what you can do to help the cause.

On Saturday night, NBC will offer up their own tribute to the man, airing the classic first ever episode of Saturday Night Live — Yes, Geroge Carlin was the host. SNL normally does not run entire episodes from the archives like this on NBC, so it’s a rare treat and absolutely worth tuning in or setting the DVRs for. The premiere is a fun watch, whether you’ve seen it before or not.

Aint It Cool News has a few more details.

‘A God Who Cussed’

Director Kevin Smith remembers George Carlin

They say you should never meet your heroes. I’ve found this a good rule to live by, but as with any rule, there’s always an exception.

My first exposure to George Carlin was in 1982, when HBO aired his “Carlin at Carnegie” stand-up special. When I saw the advert—featuring a clip of Carlin talking about the clichéd criminal warning of “Don’t try anything funny,” and then adding, “When they’re not looking, I like to go …,” followed by a brief explosion of goofy expressions and pantomime—I immediately asked my parents if I could tape it on our new BetaMax video recorder.

That was a hilarious bit. But when I finally watched the special, Carlin blew my doors off. Whether he was spinning a yarn about Tippy, his farting dog, or analyzing the contents of his fridge, Carlin expressed himself not only humorously, but amazingly eloquently as well. I was, as they say, in stitches.

And that was before he got to the Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television.

I was 12 years old, watching a man many years my senior curse a blue streak while exposing the hypocrisy of a medium (and a society) that couldn’t deal with the public usage of terms they probably employed regularly in their private lives. And while he seemed to revel in being a rebel, here was a man who also clearly loved the English language, warts and all—even the so-called “bad words” (although, as George would say, there are no such things as “bad words”). I wouldn’t say George Carlin taught me obscenities, but I would definitely say he taught me that the casual use of obscenities wasn’t reserved just for drunken sailors, as the old chestnut goes; even intelligent people were allowed to incorporate them into their everyday conversations (because George was nothing if not intelligent).

From that moment forward, I was an instant Carlin disciple. I bought every album, watched every HBO special, and even sat through “The Prince of Tides” just because he played a small role in the film. I spent years turning friends on to the Cult of Carlin, the World According to George, and even made pilgrimages to see him perform live (the first occasion being a gig at Farleigh Dickinson University in 1988). Carlin influenced my speech and my writing. Carlin replaced Catholicism as my religion.

Sixteen years later, I sat across from the star of “Carlin at Carnegie” in the dining room of the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles. It was a meeting I’d dreamed of and dreaded simultaneously. George Carlin was the type of social observer/critic I most wanted to emulate … but he was a celebrity, too. What if he turned out to be a true prick?

What I quickly discovered was that, in real life, George was, well, George. Far from a self-obsessed jerk, he was mild-mannered enough to be my Dad. He was as interested as he was interesting, well-read and polite to a fault—all while casually dropping F-bombs. But most impressive, he didn’t treat me like an audience member, eschewing actual conversation, electing instead to simply perform the whole meeting, more “on” than real. He talked to me like one of my friends would talk to me: familiar, unguarded, authentic.

I made three films with George over the course of the next six years, starting with “Dogma” and his portrayal of Cardinal Glick, the pontiff-publicist responsible for the Catholic Church’s recall of the standard crucifix in favor of the more congenial, bubbly “Buddy Christ.” A few years later, I wrote him a lead role in “Jersey Girl”—as Bart Trinke (or “Pop”), the father of Ben Affleck’s character. It called for a more dramatic performance than George was used to giving, but the man pulled it off happily and beautifully. (Something most folks probably don’t know about George: He took acting very seriously. The man was almost a Method actor.) Sadly, I consider that “Jersey Girl” part my one failing on George’s behalf, and not for the reasons most would assume (the movie was not reviewed kindly, to say the least). No, I failed because George had asked me to write a different role for him.

In 2001, George did me a solid when he accepted the part of the orally fixated hitchhiker who knew exactly how to get a ride in “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.” When he wrapped his scene in that flick, I thanked him for making the time, and he said, “Just do me a favor: Write me my dream role one day.” When I inquired what that’d be, he offered, “I wanna play a priest who strangles children.”


It was a classic Carlin thing to say: a little naughty and a lot honest. I always figured there’d be time to give George what he asked for. Unfortunately, he left too soon.

He was, and will likely remain, the smartest person I’ve ever met. But really, he was much more than just a person. Without a hint of hyperbole, I can say he was a god, a god who cussed.

Some have asked us if Kevin may have had Mr. Carlin in mind for a part in “Red State” given his desire to take evil turns on film. Sure would have been interesting. From two fellow Carlin disciples to Kevin and the rest of his fans, we sure wish we could have seen him back here in the Askewniverse once again.