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Kevin Smith talks becoming friends with Ben Affleck again thanks to Jay and Silent Bob Reboot

By Sydney Bucksbaum
July 19, 2019 at 09:02 PM EDT
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Just like Jay and Silent Bob, old friends Kevin Smith and Ben Affleck are back together again — both onscreen and off.

While stopping by EW’s video suite at Comic-Con, the filmmaker took a break from promoting his upcoming new film with Jason Mewes, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, to tell the emotional story of how he and the Justice League star became friends again after years of estrangement.

“We haven’t worked with him since Clerks II, professionally haven’t worked with him but personally he hasn’t been in my life in like eight years,” Smith says. “We worked together quite a bit, all of us, in the beginning so for years people would be like, ‘How’s Ben?’ and sooner or later I just started putting stuff on front street and be like, ‘I haven’t spoken to Ben in years. I don’t think we’re really friends anymore.’ He was out of my life completely.”


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That’s why when development on Jay and Silent Bob Reboot began, Smith didn’t even consider writing Affleck a part despite the actor’s involvement in Jay and Silent Bob’s creation.

“There was a sadness to that,” Smith says. But thanks to a random line of questioning and entertainment journalism, everything changed and Smith got the inspiration he needed to reach out to Affleck, leading to his return for Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.

Jay and Silent Bob Reboot is released in October. Tickets are available at the Fathom Events website.

Check out Smith’s full interview above (his story about Affleck’s return begins around the 8-minute mark).

https://ew.com/comic-con/2019/07/19/kevin-smith-ben-affleck-jay-and-silent-bob-reboot-friendship/
 

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Kevin Smith: I ‘felt sick’ after scheming call from Harvey Weinstein
By Eric Hegedus

October 1, 2019 | 6:49pm | Updated


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Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Smith in 2008.Getty Images
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Filmmaker Kevin Smith says Harvey Weinstein tried to “circle the wagons” for his support just days before the now-disgraced movie mogul was exposed for alleged sexual misconduct two years ago.

In an interview with Business Insider, Smith says that Weinstein called him out of the blue in the fall of 2017 to talk about making his 1999 movie “Dogma” — starring Ben Affleck and Matt Damon — available for streaming for the first time ever. Smith says Weinstein suggested that they “might even be able to do a sequel” to the movie about fallen angels crafting a return to heaven. (In 1999, then-Miramax co-presidents Weinstein and his brother Bob purchased the rights to the controversial film from Walt Disney Co. to protect Disney from backlash by Catholic groups.)

Before the call ended, Weinstein suggested he and Smith talk again — but a week later, on Oct. 5, 2017, the New York Times reported that he had allegedly paid off sexual harassment accusers for many years.

After the story broke, Smith said, “I felt sick to my stomach.”

He says it was clear that Weinstein was trying to jump-start damage control.

“It was him looking to see who was a friend still because his life was about to shift completely,” Smith tells Business Insider.

reacted to the news on Twitter: “He financed the first 14 years of my career — and now I know while I was profiting, others were in terrible pain. It makes me feel ashamed.”

Smith had previously defended Weinstein in a 2004 Variety editorial after author Peter Biskind talked about alleged shady practices by the Weinstein brothers at Miramax in the 1990s. At the time, Smith stepped up “to defend a man I respect, love, and would like to take a bullet for: the last great movie mogul,” he wrote of the situation in his 2012 book, “Tough S–t: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good.”

Smith adds that while he wishes he could release “Dogma” on streaming platforms for its 20th anniversary this year, he sees the potential for opening it up to screening in time for its 25th anniversary.

“You know, it sounds like he’s got legal bills,” Smith tells Business Insider of Weinstein’s pending court appearances next year. “That’s an asset you can sell to somebody.”
 

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Kevin Smith says 'entire cast' of Mallrats will return for sequel

Film will focus on Jason Lee's character Brodie and his daughter.
By Clark Collis
October 14, 2020 at 12:56 PM EDT




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Earlier this week, EW posted a chat with writer-director Kevin Smith in which he reminisced about making 1995's Mallrats and discussed how, over time, this box office bomb achieved the status of a cult classic. But what about the future of what it seems we now need to start calling "the Mallrats franchise"? At the end of our walk down memory lane, Smith teased the film's sequel, Twilight of the Mallrats, which will revolve around Jason Lee's superhero comics-obsessed Brodie.
"Looks like we’re heading toward it now in 2021, which is very exciting for us," said Smith. "It takes place 25 years after the original and features the entire cast, [and] a new cast of characters as well. It’s about Brodie and his daughter and the death of the mall. The Brodie that we met in Mallrats has only been proven right in life. The world came around to his way of thinking. So, based on that, Brodie never really had to grow up and now, at this juncture in time, we face the moment when he might actually have to become an adult."

The cast of the original Mallrats also included Shannen Doherty, Jeremy London, Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, Claire Forlani, Jason Mewes, Michael Rooker, and the director himself.
Smith will be making the film in collaboration with Universal, which released the original Mallrats. According to the director, the studio was unaware it held the rights to the film, which grossed a mere $2.1 million back in 1995.
"When I handed them the script for Mallrats 2, they were like, 'We own Mallrats 1?'" said Smith. "I was like, 'Yeah, it’s yours!' Mallrats is a movie that’s a little bit lost in time in many ways. It’s a real relic of its era, but at the same time, maybe except for the lack of cell phones and the haute couture, that movie still plays today, probably better than it did in 1995."

Watch the trailer for the original film above.
 
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