Kevin Smith is done with making movies ladies and gentlemen. Whether it’s a disdain for the industry, hating the fans for being honest with him or needing more time to and go respond to every single criticism thrown at him on the internet, the cult film director is finished.
While Smith has yet to actually start work on his perceived masterpiece, he does have some reasons why he’s been late with it, including options to scale it back from two movies to one.
Originally envisioned as a 2013 release for the Sundance film festival, Smith has instead gone back to basics, and says that Hit Somebody doesn’t even have a production timeline in place, because Smith is looking to not rush out an inferior product.
According to an interview done with The Playlist, Smith’s reasons for dropping his final film from two to one are so that Smith can narrow down his material;
The problem with ‘Hit Somebody’ is that I wanted to do it as two movies. It’s tough to get one hockey movie made, let alone two. So I’ve switched back to one movie. I had one-and-a-half scripts that I had to get down to one.
I want to get it down to a 150-page script and I know that’s longer than the average script length but I figure I give myself a two-and-a-half hour length on paper knowing that I’m really ruthless in editorial and I can get it down to 2, 2:05, because this is a movie that takes place over 30 years,” he explained.
“So at the end of the day if I can get the script down to 150 pages then I can pull the trigger and we’re off and running. And right now I’m at page 240. So I’ve still got to page 90 pages out. It’s a lot of material that I’m just paring down.
I’ve been occupying myself with ‘Spoilers’ or the ‘Jay And Silent Bob’ tour from which the EPIX special comes, I wrote the book, and there’s other TV stuff coming down the pike that’s kind of exciting. I’ve been keeping myself busy. People are like ‘What’s with that last movie?’
And it’s like, well, it is my last movie so I’m going to do it right and do it on my own timetable. I feel no need to rush into production. I still want to do it for as little money as possible.
You’re talking about a movie that takes place between 1950 and 1980 – period piece. It’s going to be expensive, in a way that none of my other conversation pieces have been expensive, because those were pretty much set in the present.
You’re talking about not only dressing motherfuckers through 30 years of period, but all the equipment, cars, so it’s going to cost a little bit of money. I’m going to try and keep it low.
When I say a little bit of money I’m talking about $20 – 30 million.
Sounds like a solid plan. Rushing to get a film done is never a good idea, and scaling back the scope to create one massive spectacle instead of two, will always have more of an impact. If Smith is going to do this, then he’s on the right path so far.
Let’s just hope that he finally learns to take a bit of criticism like a normal person would, when he finally wraps up on his career.
Last Updated: December 4, 2012
