Director Kevin Smith Angers Buyers With a Fake-Out at Sundance

Elizabeth Grunewald

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Oct 4, 2010
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Director Kevin Smith Angers Buyers With a Fake-Out at Sundance

The Dogma director held a faux auction for his new horror film Red State, upsetting representatives who actually intended to bid on the distribution rights.

Kevin Smith's new film Red State is a departure for the Mallrats and Clerks director. The film is a thriller, following three young men as they're captured and terrorized by a tiny, violent fundamentalist church. Smith vowed to sell the film's distribution rights in the screening room at the Sundance Film Festival, and did so. The surprise came when he sold them to himself.

Immediately following the screening of the film, Smith came out and gave what The Hollywood Reporter calls "a long and profanity-laced speech" in which the director "lambasted movie studios for a system he said is unfair and outdated and too focused on advertising." The speech lasted more than 15 minutes, at which point the auction was to begin. Smith bid a token $20 and then closed the bidding, announcing his intentions to eschew the traditional distribution system and release the movie himself, though his company SModcast Pictures.

Smith intends to take the film on the road throughout the year, beginning March 5 and leading up to the movie's official release on October 19. He wants to make back a good portion of the film's $4 million budget back through this roadshow, and will market the movie through his Twitter and podcast followings.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, buyers from indie film studios didn't seem to agree with Smith's declaration that, "In indie film 2.0, we don't let them sell our movie, we sell our movie ourselves," rather they were angry that they'd been duped, and offended that Smith insulted their profession so thoroughly. Deadline spoke to one snubbed buyer, who complained, "He stole two hours and insulted every one of us. We were told this was an acquisition title, we all brought our teams. We could have spent that time evaluating some other movie. Kevin didn't acknowledge that we are the ones risking capital acquiring films... not him, and he didn't understand how our business works, at all."

The Hollywood Reporter says Smith maintained, "he had never intended to get into the business of the movie industry - noting that he's simply a 'fat, masturbating stoner;'" it seems right now, many offended independent film distributors might be inclined to agree.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter [http://www.deadline.com/2011/01/sundance-watching-kevin-smith-implode/]

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manythings

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Nov 7, 2009
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If anyone was listening to the Red State of the Union podcasts this isn't even slightly surprising. An awful lot of those casts were about how full of shit the system is and he wasn't going to let anyone fuck him over.
 

Bretty

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Jul 15, 2008
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I like this guy 8)

And Red state looks like a pretty good flick, well edited at least!
 

ph0b0s123

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Jul 7, 2010
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Oh dear. He may have a point, but this type of behavior does not help. And if the movie is not amazing he may find getting his next job in the movie business rather hard.
 

Ghengis John

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Dec 16, 2007
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Elizabeth Grunewald said:
Smith came out and gave what The Hollywood Reporter calls "a long and profanity-laced speech" in which the director "lambasted movie studios for a system he said is unfair and outdated and too focused on advertising."
That's pretty uncool there Kevin, lambasting the advertising driven studio system to pull a publicity stunt. No matter what you might think of the system, the guy's who's time you wasted are human beings. In the least you owe them a fricking apology, you ass. I mean all the people there had to be there because they liked Smith's work or had some measure of respect for Smith, otherwise they wouldn't wanna buy into one of his films. And so this is how he treats his SUPPORTERS.
 

Booze Zombie

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"A fat, masturbating stoner"?
Is that seriously the best fucking insult a publication can come up with?

Anyway... good on him. I hate advertising, though this seems a bit counter-productive to his career.
 

Slycne

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Feb 19, 2006
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I think the biggest disappointment could ultimately be that he prevented them from viewing other films that don't have his level of fame to put behind their work and self distribute. I think if this had happened during any other time expect for Sundance I wouldn't have minded as much.

Though his heart seems to be in the right place about making a move to free more film makers from the same old marketing trapping.
 

Slycne

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Feb 19, 2006
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Booze Zombie said:
"A fat, masturbating stoner"?
Is that seriously the best fucking insult a publication can come up with?
That's a quote of him talking about himself.
 

Timbydude

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Jul 15, 2009
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Smith acted like quite the douche. That was just kind of being a jerk; he didn't really gain anything from doing that.

...And he hasn't made any genuinely funny movies yet.
 

Sutter Cane

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Timbydude said:
...And he hasn't made any genuinely funny movies yet.
This is entirely subjective personally Clerks, Mallrats, Clerks 2, and Zack and Miri Make a Porno are some of my favorite comedy movies. Also Red State Isn't a comedy film, so the point you tried to make about his movies not being funny doesn't really apply anyway
 

PeePantz

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Sep 23, 2010
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Booze Zombie said:
"A fat, masturbating stoner"?
Is that seriously the best fucking insult a publication can come up with?

Anyway... good on him. I hate advertising, though this seems a bit counter-productive to his career.
I doubt Kevin Smith is too worried about his career. He's had massive success with his films and has cemented himself as one of the top tier movie makers of the last fifteen years.
I'm actually glad that he's trying to change a terrible system. These type of "guerrilla" attacks is what the industry needs and to have a very successful director/producer/writer (movie maker) be the one standing up and trying to take down the system is much more powerful.
 

Gahars

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I like Kevin Smith's films, well some of them.

And yeah, the shady, business side of Hollywood deserves to be knocked down a peg.

But still, there's a way a to make a point, and a way to act like a douche and insult other people trying to distribute your movie.

Sadly, it seems that his previous success has swelled his ego quite a bit.
 

PeePantz

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Slycne said:
I think the biggest disappointment could ultimately be that he prevented them from viewing other films that don't have his level of fame to put behind their work and self distribute. I think if this had happened during any other time expect for Sundance I wouldn't have minded as much.

Though his heart seems to be in the right place about making a move to free more film makers from the same old marketing trapping.
I hear what you're saying, but it needs to happen at the Sundance. While there are other indie movies that need to get bought to have any chance, the system is terrible and this is what Kevin Smith is trying to change. This was the whole purpose and ultimately, it will give these tiny independent studios an actual chance without destroying their integrity.