Give Kevin Smith an inch and he’ll go a mile… The past few days have seen the director at the center of rumors saying that he had written a fake "Batman v. Superman: Dawn Of Justice" script to throw off fanboys and movie sites, while also revealing that the Weinsteins had passed on financing his $6 million "Clerks 3." Well, he addresses both of those things and more today over on his blog, Silent Bob Speaks.
First up, chatter that he banged out a fake script is, as you might guess, completely false. "No major studio would let a guy like me near their franchises – even if it was for a dummy script meant solely to fool the news sites," he writes, while pointing out that someone is already claiming credit for the fake script that’s floating out there. However, Smith has been busy writing…just a plethora of his own projects.
"After ‘Tusk,’ I penned ‘Anti-Claus‘ (formerly ‘Comes The Krampus‘) and a sitcom pilot that’s now seeing some action (both co-written with Professor Andy McElfresh from the ‘Edumacation‘ podcast). Then I wrote ‘Yoga Hosers‘ and now I’m in the middle of ‘Moose Jaws,’ " Smith wrote. So yeah, for better or worse, lots of Smith stuff coming for your eyeballs, including "Clerks 3." While the Weinsteins won’t put up the money, they’re happy to distribute, and Smith just has to get the cash together. And it seems that’s the new plan:
Via @Tomwilson1120 "Weinstein Co. made a huge mistake" Nah: Bob didn’t wanna pay for it but he offered distribution regardless. That’s cool.
— KevinSmith (@ThatKevinSmith) July 8, 2014
Via @Kitties4every1 "Will Clerks 3 still be made?" Heavens yes, just not with the Weinsteins’ money. And all involved are okay with this.
— KevinSmith (@ThatKevinSmith) July 8, 2014
Anyway, before we look too far ahead, Smith’s "Tusk" is coming and he’s dropped the first poster, along with word that the first trailer will be online right after it premieres at Comic-Con.
I think it's more likely that Smith isn't the clean and easy money-maker that he's sometimes made out to be, where it's often repeated that he makes back his budget and a profit, like in the comment below. It took five years or something for him to find funding for Red State and while he's made suggestions of putting money into his own films (even saying recently that that's what he'll do with Clerks 3) he never actually does it. I think there's likely something in that. I'm not saying he loses money for everyone, but it's probably not the easy return it's been made out to be.
Yea I came to that conclusion as well because Smith is known to elaborate things to fit his own delusions. The Weinsteins are notorious for financing anything that would seemingly make a quick buck. What probably occurred is they didn't like the script and saw very little return on their own back room investment during Clerks II.
With apologies to Mr. Smith, the Weinsteins-passing-on-'Clerks 3' story doesn't make sense. If the movie did cost $5M, then it not only made back its entire budget opening weekend ($10M), but at a worldwide gross of $26M it also likely covered its entire marketing budget. Which means every other ancillary market – DVD, SVOD, foreign and domestic syndication for TV/cable – was pure profit. If they're not financing 'Clerks 3' it could be less the budget and more about the script.