Kevin Smith will always have a place near my heart. He is one of the main reasons I want to make films. Not only did (does) he make brilliantly observed, painfully funny films about the people who deserve screen time so much more than any aesthetically perfect and detached from reality star which Hollywood churns out, he made them independently. I'm not talking about the kind of independent where Robert Paterson stars in a 'minor' $10million budget 'indie' flick. I'm talking about friends with a budget of thousands (if that) working after hours due to their day jobs on a project they've nurtured and tailored by themselves, without any studio overhead telling them what and how to do things. As a 12 year old kid who was completely mad about film but couldn't afford a video camera, that's inspirational stuff.
As his career has gone on, there always seems to be certain trends which follow Kevin’s films about: The first is that they polarize people. I've probably shown Mallrats to more friends than I should have, and every time its always the same responses, they either hands-down love it and bask in the awesomeness for its 90-odd minute run time, or they don't get it, don't find it funny in the slightest, and either suggest that the film gets changed or find something better to do than watch it. In my personal experiences I've never had someone say "Meh, its alright." This lack of middle ground means that commercially this is very risky endeavor, as you've got to make sure that the half who love it are going to be big enough in number to make sure the film breaks even. And when you already know that half of the potential market who would normally come to watch a film like this might not buy a ticket, simply because the name Kevin Smith on the front, it gets harder to convince people to give you money which they may never see again.
The second trend is that his films are often misunderstood, at least until people have had a chance to take some time to think about the film (usually a year or so). This results in films being dismissed on their theatrical release, taking bad box office results, and less money (if any) for the film makers to play around with on their next film when it gets underway, by which point a lot more people like the film that initially did not sit too well with them and suddenly have more expectations for the upcoming film, which has half the budget of the previous outing thanks to short mindedness.
But he manages. He continues to expand the Askewneyverse with film after film. And that’s one of the reasons why his fans love him so much. After his last couple of outings, which despite being semi-indie where as close to mainstream as Kevin had got to in years, it was not much of a surprise when I learnt his next film would be in the same ilk. I was surprised however, when I learnt his upcoming film 'Red State', would be a (as straight as Kevin can make it) horror flick with a pretty standard premise.
Now, according to Kevin Smith his upcoming film cost him $4 million to make. He had to blag as many friends as possible to come and help him for free. Everyone else who wouldn't work for nothing had to be haggled down to as little money as possible. 4 million dollars to make a professional feature film with A list actors like John Goodman in starring roles is cheap. Its dirt cheap. Its practically whoring yourself. Once completed, just under budget which is all the more shocking, he set about finding a distributor. This was where the real trouble begins. After many talk with companies he got told that to distribute it through the traditional methods, they would have to spend a lot of money on marketing. Approximately $46 million to be precise. The film cost less than $4 million. This means to break even, or make a profit, the film would have to gross at least $50 million. That’s a pretty big number for a niche, superficially anti-Christian genre film to gross in a God fearing USA. That, coupled with the points I made earlier means not a lot of people want to back it. So Kevin Smith, ever the innovator, came up with an idea.
Since the 90's Kevin Smith has quite famously had a very personal relationship with his fans. He achieved this through the internet. He frequently visits message boards and fan sites, talking with the people who watch his films, getting feedback, ideas and just generally fucking about, but at some point he stumbled upon an important fact. The higher the number of people talking on his films websites, the more people ended up buying tickets at the box office. So it occurred to him, why send millions upon millions of dollars trying to get your film known to the public, a public who have been notoriously harsh to Smith in the past, when you can show it off to the people who you know will come and watch it for free?
Its a very risky idea, a professional feature film solely advertised through social media and word of mouth and distributed solely by the film makers through money made by merchandising, not a distribution company, has never really been done before. Sure, online publicity stunts have been tried and tested to great success (see JJ Abrahams), but never has the success of a film been so reliant on the internet and word of mouth. But the question is, what happens if it works? How would the industry react to a film which has put close to no money into distribution, a big earner for a lot of companies, and managed to profit from it? The cynic in me thinks it will never happen. And even if it does, so many middle men will loose out on such a huge amount of money, I can see them kicking up such a shit storm, they effectively blacklist all films distributed through these methods. But who knows? Maybe now at the end of his career (Kevin has stated his next film will be his last before retiring from directing for good) he will pull it out the bag and start getting some of the success he's deserved for years. I mean, the last time he tried something as indie and ground breaking as this was Clerks, one of the most successful pictures of his career. Watch this space, as it could be one of the most important developments the indie film world has seen for a long time.
As his career has gone on, there always seems to be certain trends which follow Kevin’s films about: The first is that they polarize people. I've probably shown Mallrats to more friends than I should have, and every time its always the same responses, they either hands-down love it and bask in the awesomeness for its 90-odd minute run time, or they don't get it, don't find it funny in the slightest, and either suggest that the film gets changed or find something better to do than watch it. In my personal experiences I've never had someone say "Meh, its alright." This lack of middle ground means that commercially this is very risky endeavor, as you've got to make sure that the half who love it are going to be big enough in number to make sure the film breaks even. And when you already know that half of the potential market who would normally come to watch a film like this might not buy a ticket, simply because the name Kevin Smith on the front, it gets harder to convince people to give you money which they may never see again.
The second trend is that his films are often misunderstood, at least until people have had a chance to take some time to think about the film (usually a year or so). This results in films being dismissed on their theatrical release, taking bad box office results, and less money (if any) for the film makers to play around with on their next film when it gets underway, by which point a lot more people like the film that initially did not sit too well with them and suddenly have more expectations for the upcoming film, which has half the budget of the previous outing thanks to short mindedness.
But he manages. He continues to expand the Askewneyverse with film after film. And that’s one of the reasons why his fans love him so much. After his last couple of outings, which despite being semi-indie where as close to mainstream as Kevin had got to in years, it was not much of a surprise when I learnt his next film would be in the same ilk. I was surprised however, when I learnt his upcoming film 'Red State', would be a (as straight as Kevin can make it) horror flick with a pretty standard premise.
Now, according to Kevin Smith his upcoming film cost him $4 million to make. He had to blag as many friends as possible to come and help him for free. Everyone else who wouldn't work for nothing had to be haggled down to as little money as possible. 4 million dollars to make a professional feature film with A list actors like John Goodman in starring roles is cheap. Its dirt cheap. Its practically whoring yourself. Once completed, just under budget which is all the more shocking, he set about finding a distributor. This was where the real trouble begins. After many talk with companies he got told that to distribute it through the traditional methods, they would have to spend a lot of money on marketing. Approximately $46 million to be precise. The film cost less than $4 million. This means to break even, or make a profit, the film would have to gross at least $50 million. That’s a pretty big number for a niche, superficially anti-Christian genre film to gross in a God fearing USA. That, coupled with the points I made earlier means not a lot of people want to back it. So Kevin Smith, ever the innovator, came up with an idea.
Since the 90's Kevin Smith has quite famously had a very personal relationship with his fans. He achieved this through the internet. He frequently visits message boards and fan sites, talking with the people who watch his films, getting feedback, ideas and just generally fucking about, but at some point he stumbled upon an important fact. The higher the number of people talking on his films websites, the more people ended up buying tickets at the box office. So it occurred to him, why send millions upon millions of dollars trying to get your film known to the public, a public who have been notoriously harsh to Smith in the past, when you can show it off to the people who you know will come and watch it for free?
Its a very risky idea, a professional feature film solely advertised through social media and word of mouth and distributed solely by the film makers through money made by merchandising, not a distribution company, has never really been done before. Sure, online publicity stunts have been tried and tested to great success (see JJ Abrahams), but never has the success of a film been so reliant on the internet and word of mouth. But the question is, what happens if it works? How would the industry react to a film which has put close to no money into distribution, a big earner for a lot of companies, and managed to profit from it? The cynic in me thinks it will never happen. And even if it does, so many middle men will loose out on such a huge amount of money, I can see them kicking up such a shit storm, they effectively blacklist all films distributed through these methods. But who knows? Maybe now at the end of his career (Kevin has stated his next film will be his last before retiring from directing for good) he will pull it out the bag and start getting some of the success he's deserved for years. I mean, the last time he tried something as indie and ground breaking as this was Clerks, one of the most successful pictures of his career. Watch this space, as it could be one of the most important developments the indie film world has seen for a long time.
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