Failure of Zack and Miri Changed Keven Smith's Habits ... But Not How You Might Expect
Posted 10.07.09 by Ryan
Considering Kevin Smith's dearth of stoner comedies, it may surprise you that he recently admitted to the Huffington Post that pot smoking wasn't a past time he regularly enjoyed. He decided to change his pot smoking ways after Zack and Miri Make a Porno bombed at the box office, though. Smith says he took the movie's failure hard.
I was depressed, man. I wanted that movie to do so much better. I'm sitting there thinking "That's it, that's it, I'm gone, I'm out. The movie didn't do well and I killed Seth Rogen's career! This dude was on a roll until he got in with the likes of me. I'm a career killer! Judd [Apatow]'s going to be pissed, the whole Internet's going to be pissed because they all like Seth, and the only reason they like me anymore is because I was involved with Seth! And now I f**kin' ruined that."
It was Rogen that Smith claims introduced him to his new herbal lifestyle, a development that Smith told the New York Post has been a positive choice for a career he felt was slumping. His next project, A Couple of Dicks, is a buddy cop comedy starring Bruce Willis and Tracey Morgan. It marks the first movie Smith has directed but didn't write.
I was like "If I write a movie right now it's going to be about a filmmaker who made a movie that enough people didn't go see and it's really sad." You know, I'm not gonna write that. So this Couple Of Dicks script fell on my desk and I was like "Wow, if I had written a buddy cop movie this is exactly what it would be like."
Think Lethal Weapon and Beverly Hills Cop. It's totally fun and very warm but let's be honest, it's not a movie that has a searing message at its center. It's pretty much the movie you imagine in your head but like 40% funnier.
After Dicks, Smith will move onto a movie about another love in his life, hockey. Hit Somebody, inspired by the Warren Zevon song of the same name, will follow a man who wants to play hockey but is only good at beating people up. It sounds a lot like Happy Gilmore, but Smith says the movie will not be a comedy.
It's not like my normal s**t. Some people heard of it and were like "Oh, you're gonna do a Slapshot" and I'm like "No." I mean it's set in that era [The 70's] but I'm going for something a little else, a little different on this one.
A Couple of Dicks opens February 26, 2010. Hit Somebody has no release date currently scheduled, though Smith recently Tweeted that Wil Wheaton will be joining the cast.