“Saturday night, if you’re in the Ithaca area, come hang out at my Cornell Q&A. The show starts at seven, and some tickets are still available right here, at the website. This’ll be the first time I’ve been back to Cornell since we shot the first “An Evening with Kevin Smith” there, so it should be a fun show.”


“…I head back to the house for a meeting with Liz, Dawn, and Joe (or is it Jeff?) about tomorrow’s Fox pitch. Liz has an idea for sitcom that I’d produce and direct the pilot for (kinda like what I did on “Reaper”). The meeting is really just an excuse to finally meet in person before we head into the belly of the beast together, tomorrow morning.”


“…We meet up with Liz, Dawn and Co. then head in to pitch Liz’s show. It winds up going very well, and Fox picks it up to go to the next stage (a script), with an eye toward shooting it pre-January if they dig the script.”

As always, visit the official blogs for the complete story, what we’ve got here just scratches the surface. Kevin recently asked for last-minute SModcast questions via the Myspace blog this week, so it’s smart to subscribe and keep a close eye on those spots.

For more online commentary, you can also peep out FilmBuff Newsreel. And of course, don’t miss your chance to check out the full trailer at Yahoo Movies in all flavors of Quicktime, including that beautiful 1080p HD!

“…I’d written Dogma before I wrote Mallrats, but even in Dogma, I was bringing Jay and Silent Bob back, just ‘cause I like Jason Mewes a lot. He’s funny, and I thought those characters would be a nice way to keep that movie from becoming too heavy-handed. So I knew I’d use them again when I got to Dogma, but actually since Mallrats was the next movie, I started thinking about whether or not I’d want to include them in Mallrats, and I decided to go for it. Since Jay and Bob were in it, at one point they were the only touchstone, the only reference point, and then we wound up re-shooting the opening to Mallrats. After the movie was done, we test screened the movie, and the opening was long. It took about half an hour to get to the mall, so we just decided to shoot a new opening for it. That referenced the Julie Dwyer in the pool thing, and that really tied those two movies together in a subtle way. I mean, Jay and Silent Bob obviously in a very overt way too puts those two movies together, but the fact that the characters in Mallrats were referencing incidents from Clerks, and a character that we never even saw in Clerks, was a subtle reference to that movie. That kicked off the domino effect of including something in each film that tied it back into that same area, the same few towns.”


“…I guess I do have regional pride in that aspect of a state. South Jersey is more like North Pennsylvania to me and north Jersey is more like the south of New York. But central Jersey is in the dead center of the state, it’s where the shore is. Predominantly, it’s where the shore is. It’s what everyone thinks of when they say “down the Shore.” But really it didn’t come from that aspect of New Jersey that makes it the best; it’s just where I was raised. Like if I was raised in north Jersey, I would probably be a bigger fan of north Jersey. Same for south Jersey. But since I was raised where I was, it’s all I knew for like 22 years, so familiarity bred that loyalty I think more than anything else.”

This is one you’ll want to check out from start to finish, so make a click over to The Cornell Sun for a look. It covers a lot of background and history, some of which you may know, some not — But we dig the way it’s not all about the latest projects (which is rehash of what we already know) and takes a more personal approach. Don’t miss the Q&A in Ithaca on Saturday, if the recent Red Bank session is any indication, Kevin’s got some fantastic new tales to tell, IF you ask the right questions, of course…

“…There is a different rhythm here. There are no long monologues. It’s more the zingy rhythm of call and response. There aren’t Veronica Mars style references to pop culture, but comments do defy expectations and the timing is impeccable. The physical slapstick is expertly performed as well.”

We’re less than a week away from the national premiere now!

“Reaper,” a dude comedy from two women who earned their chops as writers on “Law & Order: SVU,” could become one of the CW’s first big breakout hits. Kevin Smith’s influence can be felt all over the pilot, which showcases leading man Bret Harrison and hilarious sidekick Tyler Labine as a couple of unlikely heroes who work as bounty hunters for the devil. It’s an unlikely premise, but it’s got smart execution and humor to spare. But maybe the greatest thing about “Reaper” is the casting of Ray Wise as Satan himself; one look at that creepy smile, and I was sold.

In the meantime, click above for blown-up views of two flyers that were just sent out to UK retailes by Diamond Distribution. Looks like they’re encouraging the local shops to stock up on the merch, so all the books should be in plentiful supply. Politely ask your local comic retailer or book shop to pick this stuff up!

First up, star Brett Harrison answers a Q&A with E! Online’s “Watch with Kristen” that reveals we may see Kevin back with the show in some capacity, which we truly hope can happen this year (though his upcoming film schedule will certainly make it tricky):

Kristen: Tyler Labine is a wack-job (in a fun way) of a best friend for you on the show. How’s he in real life?


Brett Harrison: Actually, right now he’s one of my best friends in real life. I swear, we’re constantly working with each other and coming up with new ways to do things and improvise. “Oh, now, you say this!” We’re not in that weird thing with actors that say, “Listen, man, you’re not the director of the show.” You know, like giving each other notes and stuff. We really are so open to it. We come up with different ways, and I think that’s why the pilot worked so well, because we had Kevin Smith, who is the coolest director to work with.


K: He’s awesome. Is he going to be back with you at all?


BH: You know, I think so. He definitely wants to. There’s schedules. There’s politics. Being the actor, I get to not know all that stuff. Put it this way: He definitely wants to come back, and he’s more behind the show than any celebrity director should be. He did a 7,000-seat panel for Comic-Con, and it was just supposed to be Kevin Smith, because he’s the big comic guy. It wasn’t supposed to be like, “Hey, I just shot the coolest show ever. Let’s put this out in front of 7,000 people.”

We’ve also got a new audio interview with the Reaper creators, Tara Butters and Michelle Fazekas, courtesty of BuddyTV. In the interview, they talk a bit about Kevin got attached to the pilot episode:

Kevin Smith directed the pilot, obviously kind of a big deal. How did that happen, and why’d you think of him in the first place?


Michele: Once the CW bought the script and decided that they were going to produce the pilot, you start making a list of directors. You make your wish list of, “Who do you want to direct here, who would be the most amazing person directing your pilot?” We’d have ridiculous names on the list, like, “Is Steven Spielberg available?” You make your wish list and then the more reasonable list. Kevin was on our wish list, somebody who we’d never thought we’d get, but we’ll send him the script, he’ll pass on it, and we’ll get somebody more realistic, and we never thought we’d hear anything about it. The next thing we hear is, “Kevin read the script, can you go over to his house?” And we’re like, “Yeah, we can do that.” We went to his house, and we thought we had to kind of sell ourselves to him. But he was like, “This is really funny, I want to do it.” It was simply that easy. He wanted to do it, he was interested in directing something that he hadn’t written. He just signed on, he just responded to the material, we were so lucky that happened.

You can of course check out the full text and interview at BuddyTV.

The master of the funny commentary track, though, is director Kevin Smith. Smith knows no boundaries and will often reveal candid stories about the making of his films. His tracks go into information such as which crew members Jason Mewes slept with on the set of Clerks II, what actors from Mallrats Smith will never work with again and the innermost details of Smith’s sex life. Smith has even made a few commentary tracks for films that he has nothing to do with, such as Donnie Darko and Road House. Fans of Smith’s raunchy and gossipy style should also check out the Evening with Kevin Smith DVD series. These two DVDs each feature several hours of Smith’s famously hilarious Q&A sessions.

In the case of Jason Bateman, we were sent a scoop via a thoughtful reader who swore he had the casting verified. However, since it seemed so out of left field, we first wanted to see if we were on to something, then, wanted to see if it was going to hurt anything by posting it if we WERE. We can assure you, were the rumor true that Bateman was cast in “Zack and Miri”, Kevin would absolutely have told us when we could break the scoop – When the time was right, papers were signed, deal done, etc. We run the risk of hurting a great film, and possibly even losing our jobs (and this site) in the process when we run stuff that isn’t finalized yet.

Ok, that out of the way, here’s a few bits and pieces from Kevin’s recounting of the Jason Bateman casting rumor, which started with that little e-mail from us and eventually ended up, well, all over the place:

…I never thought to simply say “It’s not true” to anyone but Brad at News Askew. Jason, however, was asked and did have an answer for Peter Sciretta over at SlashFilm. Then, over at Mtv’s Movies Blog, Shawn Adler threw up a link to the SlashFilm article, but it kind of insinuated that Bateman had passed on “Zack and Miri.” So I called Shawn to clear it up and asked him to adjust it on their site.


However, in case folks are still unclear, I’ll second what Bateman said: no, he’s not Zack in “Zack and Miri Make a Porno.” We never asked him and he never read it. He was a great idea for Zack, as Bateman’s a genius who drops performance clinics in even small roles (”Smokin’ Aces”, the upcoming-but-gonna-be-retitled “Quebec”), but like I said: I wrote the role for someone specifically, and that specific someone’s the only guy I’ve ever sent the script to.

As always, see the full blog for more detail on this. Just another tale of how one little rumor can get blown way outta control.