Kevin Smith and I get along really well. This summer he had me on his Hulu show “Spoilers” where we were the only two who agreed on The Amazing Spider-Man.
This month his latest special debuts on Epix. “Jay and Silent Bob Go Down Under” is a live performance of his podcast with Jason Mewes, in which Mewes tells all his sex stories with Smith egging him on. After discussing the show, I asked Smith about the biggest news of the day in geekdom: Star Wars: Episode VII, Justice League and Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Kevin Smith: How are you, sir?
CraveOnline: I’m great. How are you?
Kevin Smith: Just working on next season of “Comic Book Men.” Our editorial department is so far ahead that I’m seeing the February episodes, so I’m four episodes into the next eight which come out in February. That’s me, man. What a great job this is where they just send you cuts of the show this early.
CraveOnline: Is that season three, or season two part 2?
Kevin Smith: That’s season 2B they’re calling it. It starts February 14th, Valentine’s Day, when most geeks are home alone anyway I guess they figure. It’s moving to a different night. We used to be on Sunday with “The Walking/Talking Dead.” Now AMC’s branching out and doing two nights so we’re moving over to Thursday.
CraveOnline: Now, when I travel, I’m just wrecked and wiped out. Going to Australia, did you have jet lag and how did you get back up to speed for performances?
Kevin Smith: No, man. It was amazing. Hitting the ground running. When we got to Australia, it’s not the show that’s on Epix, but we did a series of shows across the country. I think there was about 5 or 6 in different parts of the country, so the first show we got there I think at two o’clock in the afternoon and we were on stage at 8, but it’s just talking. It doesn’t really take much out of you to get up there, sit there and talk to your buddy.
It wasn’t like, “Oh man, I need to recuperate for a full 24 before we stand up on stage, or rather sit up on stage and have a conversation.” You’re almost better off having a sleepy conversation because who knows what kind of punchy, funny things you’re going to say? That’s the thing you’re always thinking. We’re not just talking to each other. We’re talking with each other knowing that you’ve got a couple thousand people sitting there listening so you’re inclined to try to make them laugh.
CraveOnline: Mewes really dominates this one. Were there more Kevin Smith monologues that didn’t make the Epix cut?
Kevin Smith: No, no, no. When we do “Jay and Silent Bob Get Old,” and we’ve been doing the podcast for almost two years now, over two years now, it’s pretty much the Jay Mewes show. I’m just kind of the cohost. He’s Jerry Lewis and I’m Dean Martin I guess in that equation, but he’s the focus of the show, particularly because it’s about him staying sober and what not. I’ll jump in and tell stories about my life and what not but it’s pretty much Jay’s time to shine.
For a guy that stands on stage by himself normally, it’s tremendous having a f***in’ sidekick. At first, when I started doing the podcasts with my wife, with Mosier and then Ralph Garman and Jason Mewes now in “Jay and Silent Bob Get Old,” I thought I was getting a sidekick, like I’ve got a Robin. But when you watch the show, he’s clearly Batman. I’m a fat Robin.
CraveOnline: Did getting clean make Mewes dirtier?
Kevin Smith: A little bit I would say, but to be fair he’s always been very potty mouth and obsessed with sex. I mean, it’s easier when he’s on stage, it comes out of him more because just like a kid, the class clown in school, if people are sitting there laughing, he’s being encouraged so he gets even filthier. But he needs an audience, so if he’s sitting here talking to me and starts telling a filthy story, if I engage, he’ll keep going, but if I’m like, “Dude, I’ve heard that” then he just kind of shuts down, we can have a normal conversation.
Getting clean, it’s not like it’s accentuated something that we heretofore hadn’t known about. He was always a pretty horny dude and always pretty potty mouth. Being clean, ironically, with that show on stage, we spend so much time talking dirty, don’t let any Christian tell you that the potty mouth stuff is not the path to redemption because he curses his little head off and he’s pulled himself out of a literal hell by sitting up on stage and telling these stories.
CraveOnline: For someone like me who’s seen and heard everything, his bathroom story and queef story made me laugh out loud.
Kevin Smith: We’re coming up on show 99 and I think it was two weeks ago, man, he told a story on stage that I’m pretty sure at this point I’ve heard everything that he’s said. Then I heard this story and I’m like, “What? How did this happen? Did you pull a magic sword from the stone? Why are you so sexually blessed, or cursed, depending on how you look at it?”
CraveOnline: Where were you when you heard the news about Star Wars: Episode VII?
Kevin Smith: I was in a conference room having a meeting. That’s how they started the meeting. Somebody came in and just said, “Did you hear about the Star Wars stuff?” And I said no. It had just been announced I guessed online. I said, “What it is?” They said, “Disney’s buying Star Wars for four billion.”
And at first that was all they said and I was like, “Wow, why would you buy a dead franchise for four billion bucks?” And then they said, “Oh no, they’re going to keep going. They’re making Episode VII, VIII and IX.” And that’s when the news really started to affect me. So I remember where I was. I was in someone’s corporate boardroom and I remember thinking, “Oh my lord, man, they’re going to be able to make a Boba Fett movie finally.” I was so happy for Joe Johnston.
CraveOnline: Do you really think they’re going to do the Boba Fett time travel movie you suggested in your Hollywood Reporter piece?
Kevin Smith: No. They’ll never do my Boba Fett time travel movie, but I can’t imagine that they don’t [use him]. Boba Fett being such a fan favorite and Joe Johnston, the guy that created the look of Boba Fett and who’s a director himself, directed Rocketeer, Captain America, if he’s interested and he’s shown an interest in the past, I can’t imagine they don’t let him go to it. That’s the guy that was born to make the Boba Fett movie.
CraveOnline: I know Hit Somebody is your last movie, but for Star Wars, would you throw your hat in the ring?
Kevin Smith: No, I like watching. I’m a watcher, dude. To do stuff, that requires sweat and effort. I’m not into that anymore. My vote is [Jon] Favreau. I think he’d be amazing. He did such a great job with the Iron Man movie. It’s such a perfect family film. Star Wars I think he could handle, and he seems to be a big fan.
CraveOnline: The rumor is Matthew Vaughn.
Kevin Smith: Is that right? Well, I liked Kick-Ass and X-Men.
CraveOnline: They’re saying that’s why he’s not doing the next X-Men.
Kevin Smith: Ahhh. Who’s doing Days of Future Past?
CraveOnline: Bryan Singer’s back.
Kevin Smith: You’re kidding.
CraveOnline: I’m filling you in on this news?
Kevin Smith: Yeah, I didn’t hear that. When did that happen?
CraveOnline: Just before Thanksgiving, and now they’ve announced Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan are going to come back.
Kevin Smith: Look at Fox, man.
CraveOnline: So if Star Wars can come back, could there maybe one day be Clerks 3?
Kevin Smith: Always. There’s always potential for a Clerks 3 man. I mean, Clerks’ 20th anniversary is coming up a year from now, a year from this coming Sundance. January 2014 will be the 20th anniversary. I’m going to market in some specific way so I don’t know, that’s always a possibility.
CraveOnline: Man, I remember the 10th anniversary.
Kevin Smith: Time flies, dude. This is what kills me, somebody was like, “You’re going to get on the phone and talk about ‘Jay and Silent Bob Go Down Under’ for Epix,” and I just realized that this is the third time that Epix has let me do anything.
That is so neat, man. The first thing I did for them was “Too Fat for 40.” I always thought that was coming after Southwest so naturally they were like, “Hey, we’ll see what he has to say.” I thought it’d be a one off but then they asked me to do another one and that was the second one, “Burn in Hell.” But this one is the third, man. I’ve kind of got like a George Carlin HBO thing going here with Epix. I like it.
CraveOnline: Some other big movie news, do you think Joseph Gordon-Levitt is really going to be in Justice League?
Kevin Smith: I hope so. If that’s the case, then that meant that the end shot of Dark Knight Rises was kind of like the first taste of Justice League, almost like a Marvel teaser at the end of their movies. I’m all for it. The question then at this point, I guess most people are asking is, “Wait a second, so Batman won’t be Bruce Wayne?”
CraveOnline: I would like that but I just don’t believe he would do it.
Kevin Smith: You don’t think Joseph Gordon-Levitt would do a Justice League movie?
CraveOnline: No, I think he did a Christopher Nolan movie, but I don’t see him getting into a comic book movie.
Kevin Smith: What if they got somebody cool?
CraveOnline: Yeah, depending on the director. I could be totally wrong.
Kevin Smith: His buddy who did (500) Days of Summer, who went on to make Spider-Man. So at that point, let’s say his buddy who made that movie, who also made Spider-Man is like, “Hey, they gave me Justice League.” You know the dude would be inclined. He’d go, “F*** it, man, I like that guy. I worked with him before.”
CraveOnline: Are you hopeful for Amazing Spider-Man 2?
Kevin Smith: Yeah, a bit more. You and I of course are veterans of Amazing Spider-Man together, but I think, how does one say this? Kids seem to like those two kids, man, Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield. My kid saw the movie and ate ‘em up. She fell in love with Spider-Man because of Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, so it might be a generational thing for me where I’m like, “Oh, I guess this is how the kids want their Spider-Man now, attractive, not geeky and constantly trying to get to second base with Gwen Stacy.”
Do I hold out hope for the second one? Absolutely, man. It’s not like I was like, “The first one is crap!” It was just all over the place and that first 45 minutes to an hour just felt like “we’re doing the origin story again?” So now that they’re done with their origin story and what not, it feels like yeah, they can hit the ground running, probably do a cool movie. Do you know who the villain’s supposed to be?
CraveOnline: Electro, and they’re casting for Harry Osborn.
Kevin Smith: Why? Why does anyone think that that character is [interesting]? Of all the characters you could play with in not just the Marvel universe, but specifically the Spider-Man universe, Harry Osborn to me, never the most compelling, man. I’d put Jean DeWolff in a movie I think before I’d think about putting Harry Osborn, a bunch of supporting characters. Betty Brant I’d focus on before bringing in Harry Osborn, especially because in the last series, we just saw three Harry Osborn movies.
The whole thing evolved into the Harry Osborn franchise. Norman Osborn, if they bring him in, they bring in the Green Goblin of course that’s absolutely necessary. Nobody can take any advice from me though, as you know, Fred. Here I am telling them what The Amazing Spider-Man 2 should do and I’m sure they’re going, “Yeah, we’ll do that, Cop Out.”
CraveOnline: I saw on Cracked.com that there was at one time talk of a Hellraiser/Jay and Silent Bob crossover? What was that going to be?
Kevin Smith: Yeah, Bob Weinstein said to me one day on the phone, this was after Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, he goes, “You know what happens with buddy team comedies in the history of cinema.” I go, “No, what? They stop making them eventually? People get tired?” And he goes, “Thing about what Abbott and Costello did. They met the monsters.”
This was back in the day at Miramax, not even The Weinstein Company. He’s like, “We have Hellraiser, Pinhead. We have Michael Myers, Halloween. We have Children of the Corn. Why not Jay and Bob meeting the modern day monsters so it’s kind of like Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein or The Wolfman but instead it’s Jay and Bob meeting Pinhead?” And I was like, “Bob, I can’t get my head around that.”
I remember I told Ben Affleck that idea. Next time I spoke to Ben I was like, “Bob Weinstein told me, he suggested that I do Jay and Silent Bob vs. Hellraiser.” And Affleck starts laughing and then he stops and he goes, “You know what, man? That movie would make $100 million.” I said, “Get out of here.” He goes, “Come on, dude. Think about it. It’s just so f***in’ stupid that enough people might be like, ‘I want to see what happens.’” I mean, to me it never went beyond that conversation but I’d often joked about if I was going to do it, it would be Jay and Silent Bob with that puzzle box and it snaps into place and they wind up in rehab.”
CraveOnline: Thank you, Kevin.
Kevin Smith: Fred, I’ll talk to you later on, man.
