Kevin Smith Plans to Ditch Hollywood, Redefine 'Indie'

By Matthew Shepatin Posted Jan 25th 2011 04:40PM

Kevin Smith has a plan to bypass what he sees as a messed-up Hollywood studio system that ineffectively spends a vulgar amount on advertising dollars, mostly on films that aren't very good. He harped on the point -- and made headlines -- with a recent spot on the 'WTF with Marc Maron' podcast, citing his job helming 'Cop Out' as a majorly unsatisfactory experience in the big-budget world.

Let's face it: Smith is at his most vocal when he's been wronged. And nobody, according to Smith, has wronged him more than the mainstream film industry which turned him from indie maverick to, well, the director of 'Cop Out.'

Now the 40-year-old director is making the biggest, funniest stink he can, all the while proselytizing at Sundance, on Twitter and in the press that he's ready to bypass the Hollywood filmmaking and distributing style altogether.

Vulture reported that Smith practically stole the show at Sundance, pulling off fake protests, setting up elaborate hoaxes and delivering profanity-laced speeches, all to show how Hollywood's movie-making business model is irrevocably broken. In light of the dysfunction he sees, Smith has vowed to break the bond between filmmaker and film industry. You might ask yourself how exactly Smith expects to make movies without any studio support. The answer is an ambitious self-distribution plan the director dubs Indie 2.0.

Smith is betting he can successfully take his new film 'Red State' on the road, plotting a 15-date national tour set to feature Q&A sessions with Smith. People will plop down roughly $50 a ticket for the special screenings. In lieu of a traditional marketing campaign, Smith plans to rely on his legions of fans to stir up national attention and widespread interest in the movie.

Smith predicts he'll earn back about $1.5 million of the film's $4 million budget, according to Fast Company. Once he's shown the success of this DIY business model, Smith plans to deal directly with exhibitors to ensure a national release on Oct. 19, the 17th anniversary of his debut, 'Clerks,' hitting screens.

Early on Jan. 25, Smith dove into one of his frequent tweet-a-thons, promising to chronicle his efforts to distribute 'Red State' himself. "During the next 10 months," tweeted Smith, "we're gonna educate you on what everything costs, what we earn, what we get to keep, the costs of posters, toilet paper -- the Harvey Boys will open the books & let you follow along with good ol', simple too [sic] understand, real world arithmetic. We'll show you all the money that's coming in on one of those thermometer graphics, with the $4 million total we're aiming to hit long before the October 19th general release."

Smith has already demonstrated that to the best self-branders/fan-collectors/buzz-creators go the spoils. In his mind, movies are just another of his ventures that work by the same strength in numbers -- see: 1.7 million Twitter followers -- premise. It doesn't matter, really, if those numbers are page views, Facebook friends or podcast listeners. Empowered by the numbers he pulls in and their growing value in a digital society, Smith told the crowd at the Sundance premiere of 'Red State' that he'd be putting the movie out himself without "spending a f***ing dime on marketing."

See a 'Red State' teaser [warning: explicit content]:

In the past, Smith has also shown interest in using his SModcast network as a way to allow fans to fund his future projects, as well as to finance the next Kevin Smith, still living in his mom's basement somewhere. While "crowd-funding" has become a buzz word in the music industry, it hasn't generated as much talk within the indie film world. Smith would like to change all that, as he blogged last February:

Our plan is to put anything we make into a fund that would, in turn, finance other (cost-sensible) flicks fans want to see. And from that? Build a People's Studio. Simply have any interested/frustrated/desperate party put their script on our website, open for all to read, during a "pilot season" of sorts. Script that gets the most votes, gets the loot. That flick gets made and sold, all the loot goes back into fund for next round. If there's enough loot from 'RED STATE' sale to do so, idea would be to fund two low budget flicks a year. Ultimate dream: Indie Movement, v.3.

Smith has said he plans to direct only two more films: hockey flick 'Hit Somebody' and a third 'Clerks.' After all, why deal with Harvey Weinstein when you can become Harvey Weinstein?

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Tags: Cop Out, Kevin Smith, Red State

Comments

(10)

Tuesday 25 January

By bruce willis

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who's this kevin smith kid ?........he looks like the guy at the window [@ my burger-king] !

By Andy

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Hey, Bruce, do you miss Demi?

By stu

i see the next contestant for the Biggest Loser Show.

By Glennpeck

Hey Kevin, How bout ditchen the Sweets! Your one big Jerk, Say hi to michael Moore for us.

By Godiva

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Who?

By joshlsmith

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I see AOL's clueless readers are in full force today. The film industry has caused a lot of crap to be thrown our way.

Wednesday 26 January

By MrsKiwi

Kevin Smith should just disappear already--oh wait, he'd have to lose 400lbs to do that.

By Vanny

Good for him! I agree with him about how ridiculous Hollywood is getting.

By Sandi

If I knew who he was, I'm sure I'd miss him.

By Ray FizzLeDizzLe

"oh, who's Kevin Smith?" lame. 'Who are you' is the real question. Let's just knock a man down for doing something good in an industry full of "jerks" as you like to call him. He's giving nobodys like you a shot to do something other than stink up a thread. And, for the record, he knows he's fat, do your homework. Who's Kevin Smith? He's Kevin Smith. That's who.

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