Biz: Kevin Smith Teams w/ Defy Media to Launch Fatman on Batman UPDATE: Exec Prod He-Man Netflix series THE 4:30 MOVIE TRAILER

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I can't wait for prince Adam to reveal those "fabolous" secrets. *wrist*

 
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Clerks III, Having Outlived the Concept of Video Stores, Is Actually Happening
By Rebecca Alter@ralter
Photo: Darren Michaels/Weinstein Company/Kobal/Shutterstock
Remember how in Kevin Smith’s 1994 breakout Clerks, one of the clerks was playing hooky on his job as a video-store clerk to hang out with that other clerk? Now, video stores are a historical relic akin to Mayan pyramids only not as well-preserved, and all those slacker-youth main characters have reached middle age. Today, Deadline announced that Smith will expand the View Askewniverse with Clerks III, which is already in preproduction in New Jersey. The major cast from the first two films will reprise their roles, including Jeff Anderson (Randal), Brian O’Halloran (Dante), Jay Mewes (Jay), Rosario Dawson (Becky), and Smith as Silent Bob. The plot description sounds suitably meta for this band of geeks: “In Clerks III, following a massive heart attack, Randal enlists Dante, Elias, Jay, and Silent Bob to make a movie immortalizing his life at the convenience store that started it all.” They’ll film entirely on location in New Jersey.
Smith tweeted out the announcement, writing, “To be great is to go on. To go on is to go far. To go far is to return.” Smith also clarified that filming will begin on August 2, his birthday.
 

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Ben Affleck and Matt Damon credit Kevin Smith for saving Good Will Hunting

But forgot to thank him when they won the Oscar for it.
By Lauren HuffJanuary 12, 2022 at 05:16 PM EST




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Good Will Hunting almost looked very different than the film audiences have come to know and love — and it's thanks at least in part to Kevin Smith.
The 1997 Gus Van Sant drama, written by a then largely unknown Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, follows Damon's hard-shelled foster kid Will, an undiscovered genius working as a janitor at MIT who connects with a rumpled psychologist played by Robin Williams. (Affleck played his decidedly more ordinary best friend; Minnie Driver and Stellan Skarsgard also costarred). The film was a box office success, garnering nine Oscar nominations and winning two — including Best Screenplay.

The longtime friends and collaborators sat down for EW's latest cover, with Damon interviewing newly-minted SAG nominee Affleck about everything from life and love to the early projects that made him a star, including how Good Will Hunting came to be.
"Kevin saved Good Will Hunting," Damon says of Smith (Dogma, Mallrats), who had worked closely with the pair on 1997's Chasing Amy and helped convince the studio that they also belonged on camera. "We were dead in the water. And we would've lost it. It would've been made with other people in it, and we'd still be really angry I'm sure."
CREDIT: EVERETT COLLECTION
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"We would have been the writers, but we wouldn't have been the actors," Affleck concurs. "And the whole thing was we wanted to be actors. And he got it to [executive producer] Jon Gordon and got people to believe in it."

Despite his instrumental role in getting the movie made, Smith might still be waiting for a public acknowledgment. "I promised him I would thank him if we ever got an Oscar, and promptly forgot," Affleck recalls. "And then I told him if I ever win again, I swear to God, I'm going to thank you, and forgot again. So I owe him very much, and he did that. He believed. I remember he wrote me an email at the time and in typical Kevin fashion said, 'I started your movie on the shitter. And I stayed on the whole time.'"
Affleck also credited Williams for signing on to work with a couple of unknowns at the height of his fame: "Now, if you went to do a movie with two first-time guys who were in it and wrote it, you'd have a healthy degree of, 'Okay, how's this going to go?'" he says. "And at the time. he was the biggest star in the world. He was leveraging an awful lot. [But] he never seemed condescending or worried or impatient. He just came into it with this collaborative spirit, embraced it. And it was more him going, 'How was it? What do you think? I think we should do it again tomorrow.'
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon

| CREDIT: MIREK TOWSKI/DMI/THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES
"I'd be [like], 'Robin, you did it 40 times,'" he continued. "'And they were all great! We don't need to re-shoot it tomorrow.' But we'd be back there doing his monologue, and he put his heart and soul into it, [though] I remember personal issues of his that I could tell were coming through in moments. And God, he was a wonderful guy and funny. It was the first time I ever got to hang out with somebody that talented and that famous, and it was quite a thing. I remember walking down the street of Boston with him, and he had done Good Morning, Vietnam and Awakenings and Fisher King and all that. And all everybody in Boston would say was, 'Nanu, nanu. Mork from Ork."
"He would just do take after take after take because that beautiful brain of his would always come up with something different to do," Damon added. "There's a great story Terry Gilliam told me that at the end of The Fisher King, he gave him a report card, which had maybe 10 different categories, like how he was to work with — A! Everything was an A until he got to late-night phone calls, F. Because Robin would call him every night and go, 'Was that okay, boss? What do you think, boss?'"
"And for some reason, he would look to me, and I was like, 'I'm 24, man. You want me to tell you? You're Robin Williams. Why are you asking me for?" Affleck said, laughing. "I'm watching you!'"
 

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Kevin Smith says Dogma is being held hostage by Harvey Weinstein, 'the devil himself'

According to the Clerks III director, the disgraced Miramax producer is the reason why the 1999 religious satire isn't available to stream or buy anywhere.
By Jessica WangSeptember 19, 2022 at 03:36 PM EDT






Kevin Smith's Dogma, a religious satire centered on two fallen angels who hatch a plan to return to heaven after being cast out by God, is being held hostage by "the devil himself," the filmmaker says.
By the devil, Smith means disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein, who is currently behind bars on charges of rape and sexual assault. During a recent interview with TheWrap, the Clerks III director offered an explanation for why the 1999 satire starring Ben Affleck and Matt Damon isn't available to stream or buy anywhere (it has since gone out of print on home video).
"In order to tell the story unfortunately, I'm gonna have to say the name that nobody wants to hear anymore. But of course, Harvey Weinstein figures into the story," Smith said. While then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner told Weinstein not to make the "hot button" film — which evoked the wrath of religious groups before it even entered production — Weinstein did so anyway.


Chris Rock, Kevin Smith, and Jason Mewes in 'Dogma'

| CREDIT: EVERETT COLLECTION
Lionsgate released Dogma theatrically, while Columbia/TriStar got the home video rights for a limited time, "but then the rights lapsed," Smith said. It was roughly a decade later when the filmmaker received a call from Weinstein "out of the blue" about a potential Dogma sequel or TV series. It was 2017 — and the call came about one week before The New York Times published the exposé about the assault and rape allegations.
"I got really excited because I was like, 'Oh my God... the dude remembered me,'" Smith said. "After a decade he remembered that I was part of the Miramax family. And he remembered that he had Dogma and had a cool cast." According to Smith, however, the phone call was a ruse — a realization that set in after he spoke to former Miramax executive John Gordon.

When Smith mentioned he had been in contact with Weinstein, Gordon allegedly said Weinstein "called everyone because he knew the story was coming, and he wanted to find out who spoke [to the Times].'" Smith said, "I was like, 'That makes perfect sense.' I'm guileless, I don't see all the angles. He was calling not because he wanted to do anything with Dogma. He wanted to see if I was one of the people who had spoken to the New York Times. I hadn't, because I didn't know any of that stuff."

Harvey Weinstein

| CREDIT: SETH WENIG/AP/SHUTTERSTOCK
Upon learning that Weinstein was trying to sell the rights for $5 million, Smith and his lawyers tried to buy it back, "which we felt very dirty about because we didn't want to give him money," he said, but Weinstein "scoffed" at his various offers. "He's holding it hostage," Smith said. "My movie about angels is owned by the devil himself."
A new company has the rights to the film, Smith learned, but he suspects Weinstein "changed the name of the company and maybe sold it to a different shell company." He said, "My movie about heaven is in limbo."
Miramax distributed a number of Smith's films, including Clerks, Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back, Jersey Girl, and Chasing Amy.

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