Exclusive: Kevin Smith's 'Hit Somebody' Will Film In Fall 2015, Smith Has Funding For 3 More Projects
Say what you will about Kevin Smith's Tusk, but ultimately it was the spark that gave new life to the filmmaker. Just like he did in the '90s, Smith made Tusk kind of on a whim. He and his producer Scott Mosier came up with the idea, Smith wrote it and a few months later it was being shot. Unlike his '90s debut, Smith did have funding this time so it wasn't as down and dirty as Clerks. But the independent spirit was there. And Kevin Smith is now overflowing with movie ideas.
He's got a few more days to shoot on Yoga Hosers, a Tusk spinoff about two 15-year-old girls fighting monsters. After that, he'll finally make the long awaited Clerks III. He's also got preliminary funding to make Moose Jaws, a horror comedy that is basically Jaws with a moose. That'll likely happen after Clerks III.
For Smith fans, though, there's one glaring omission that list: Hit Somebody. Over the past few years, Smith's hockey epic morphed from one film, to two films, to a miniseries and then into oblivion as he got busy with so many other things. But /Film recently talked to the director and he revealed that the producers of Tusk have given him money not only to make Yoga Hosers, Clerks III and Moose Jaws but Hit Somebody as well. And they'll shoot it in Canada during the Fall of 2015.
Read the Kevin Smith Hit Somebody quotes below.
We talked to Smith about Tusk, which hits Blu-ray December 30, and this is just an excerpt from the longer interview. I asked Smith about the update on Hit Somebody and his answer was basically to explain how Tusk got him not only funding on that, but several other projects. I've bolded the Hit Somebody part, but the whole thing is interesting.
Kevin Smith: The beautiful thing about Tusk is that it opened a lot of doors in a weird way. I guess it was just maybe like 'Oh he's working again' or some people were really attracted to the material. The folks at this company Star Stream at one point were thinking or toying with the notion of funding Tusk, but Demarest kind of swooped in and did it. So Kim Ledford, who runs Star Stream, loved Tusk and she was like 'What are you doing next?' I wanna do whatever you're involved in. You seem to be in this weird place and I wanna work with you.And so we were talking about doing the Krampus movie with her and Star Stream. And so, you know, the Yoga Hosers thing came together in post on Tusk and again, it came together very quickly. And when I reached out to Demarest and said, 'Hey, man, I wanna make this Yoga Hosers movie, do you wanna go?' They were like 'We won't be ready by the end of the year. We're gonna have to wait till middle of next year.' But again, I had a window. So I was like well, 'Do you mind if I go finance someplace else?' And they're like 'Yeah, totally, go ahead.' And so Star Stream, I reached out to them and said, 'I know we're about to do this Krampus thing, but there's this movie that kind of came out of nowhere and I wrote it, but I think we can pull it off since it's not that expensive' and blah, blah, blah. And it's about two 15 year old girls. And that was the magic right there, man. Because they were like 'You're making a movie for an audience that voraciously goes to the movies? Like that's really good.' So they jumped on board with Yoga Hosers and we put Krampus on the back burner.
Kim was like 'Look, you talked about this True North Trilogy, these three movies in Canada. You gotta make those in succession. So Krampus you can make anytime, but like keep making this 'cause you've already kind of set the tone.' I was like 'All right.' So they jumped into Yoga Hosers because of that. While working on Yoga Hosers, Clerks III came up and Kim was like 'Let me read that script.' And suddenly she was like 'Oh my God, we're making this movie. Why didn't you tell me about it sooner?' I was like 'Ah, we were working on this other thing.' So boom, Clerks III was suddenly happened. Moose Jaws has already been pre-approved and we got our money for Moose Jaws. So once again, like Tusk just keeps it going.So we were having this conversation about fake Canada that I keep setting the movies in now for this True North Trilogy. And Kim, her former boss, he used to work tangentially in the world of the NHL (National Hockey League). Howard Baldwin I believe was her former boss. So, you know, she knows a lot about the world of hockey, particularly the WHA (World Hockey Association). And I was like 'Oh my Lord, I have written this mini-series that we were planning to do with CBC up in Canada. That, you know, I've been sitting on for a while.' I said, 'You would love to read it, just because it's set in the world that you know very well.' And then when I was all over, she was like 'Wow, we're making this right now.' And so we have two meetings and we met with our Canadian counterparts, 'cause we're gonna shoot up a lot of it up North and then some of it in Michigan as well. But we were able to kind of pull the budget together. So in the fall of 2015, we head up to it looks like Northern Ontario and start shooting Hit Somebody.
And once again, that also spun from Tusk. So that's why I'm like, man, I had two choices in the morning. Don't make the movie or make a movie. And I sat down and said, 'All right, enough people said Walrus Yes. Maybe I'll start writing it and stuff.' And because of that, everything else kind of happened. None of that stuff was gonna happen. A year ago, I was trying to get money for Clerks III and it wasn't happening. That was me going like 'I'm gonna have to finance this movie myself.' Which again, like I'm always game to do. Like try to pull it together. I'm not like Smaug, I'm not sitting on a pile of fucking gold, but, you know, I can call in some favors and pull together a low budget still at this point. But luckily I didn't have to do it with Tusk and then I haven't had to with the other ones. And that's all because Tusk exists.You know, so it's weird. Like every time somebody's like 'Fuck this movie, it shouldn't exist, I'm like 'Well I could see your point. Like it is weird and stupid.' But, man, it's the gift that keeps on giving for me. And it's not because the movie is like 'Oh it's one of the best films ever made.' Not by any stretch of the imagination. It's just it exists, period. And it shows kind of creativity and it also shows like, you know, a willingness to make something happen from nothing. And do it on a low budget. And kind of pull together casts, which I can still do. So that makes it easier for somebody to be like 'Here. Here's a check, go do something else.' And suddenly it means like we're gonna get to make Hit Somebody as well in the Fall. So that's kind of... I love that little walrus movie. It's so strange and it's like I know according to the narrative, it should be like 'This movie didn't work theatrically.' And for that, he was punished and he'll never do something like this again. I should be discouraged from pursuing this kind of thing, but honestly, it made everything else possible, so I'm just like 'Wow, man, like I'm delighted I made Tusk.' I know not everybody agrees, but I am.
Now is Hit Somebody going to be a movie, two movies or a mini-series? Smith didn't say. But we'll keep you updated as we learn more.
Read more about the history of Hit Somebody in our archives. And keep checking back on /Film as we keep you updated on not only Hit Somebody, but Yoga Hosers, Moose Jaws and Clerks III. Plus, keep an eye out for the full Smith interview in the coming days.