Clerks II

[polkablues]

The next person who types the phrase "View Askewniverse" onto this board gets punched in the eye.  Just fair warning.  We have to draw the line somewhere.

View Askewniverse

Let me kiss that black eye better for you.   

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

I should've seen this instead of Lady In The Water.




Maybe that was a bit irrational.  I should've stayed home.

[RegularKarate]

I should've seen this instead of Lady In The Water.




Maybe that was a bit irrational.  I should've stayed home.

You should have seen Monster House

[samsong]

kevin smith is a douche bag.
hilarious when it knew what it was (a really stupid movie) but riddled with grotesque senimentality and attempts at emotion too sincere--frighteningly so--to be in-jokes.  i got what i was expecting but i didn't need the heart-to-hearts or kevin smith's musings about modern love/relationships.  i like rosario dawson.

i should've seen Lady in the Water instead of this.

[Gold Trumpet]

Again, Monster House! The majority won't believe the few about this movie until it hits video. Too bad.

[pete]

welcome to my world.
rent kill zone.

[MacGuffin]

Kevin Smith is Pissed Off Again

After making virtual lunchmeat out of Joel Siegel and his crybaby ways, Clerks 2 director Kevin Smith now has a new target firmly in his sights. Namely, the L.A. Weekly's Nikki Finke. Ms. Finke takes extreme umbrage with the fact that WeinsteinCo. sponsored a Clerks 2 promotion that resulted in 10,000 Smith fans getting their names attached to the flick's end credits. As is his normal M.O., Mr. Smith fired back on his own blog (see below) -- and the guy's seriously unhappy about Ms. Finke's comments.

What both sides fail to mention is that this is hardly a new trend. Peter Jackson used a similar approach a few years back, and you can see thousands of fans' names listed on the Fellowship of the Ring extended edition DVD. Right?

Nikki Finke calls it "a huge dis to anyone who's ever earned a legitimate credit on a film." Kevin Smith calls it a non-issue that nobody in the biz has complained about before now. Obviously it's just a difference of opinion, but Smith does nail Finke on one erroneous statement: She refers to Clerks 2 as a "failure," but the flick will certainly be well within the realm of profitability before the DVD hits the shelves.



Hollywood Guilds Ain't Gonna Be Thrilled
This may set a new low in the scandal of credits gone wild in the movie biz. The Weinstein Company is boasting about creating a unique partnership between Clerks 2 and MySpace whereby the first 10,000 people who linked a designated page to their friends list would be permanently added to the ending credits of the film. This could very well be the most insulting thing I've ever heard, a huge diss, to anyone who's ever legitimately earned a credit on a film. It's the sort of shenanigan that, if the guilds in this town had spines, they should stop immediately.

Back to TWC, a recent PR release exults: "Willing to take risks, the Weinsteins have consistently been the film industry's early adopters in their use of specialized marketing and distribution strategies, individually tailoring each film's release to suit its particular strengths. Most recently, The Weinstein Company, embraced rich media/online video with a ground breaking presence on YouTube for the respective launches of Lucky Number Slevin, and hotly anticipated Clerks II." Yeah, we saw what that promotion did for those movies' bottom-line: Slevin made a pathetic $22 million, and Clerks 2 is well on its way to more failure. The Weinstein Company also has significantly invested in SmallWorld, billed as "the world's most exclusive online social network that brings together highly influential people from all over the globe." Meanwhile, Harv will be interviewed by Charlie Ross at this year's MIXX 2.6 confab and expo held Sept. 25-26.

Posted by Nikki Finke on Tuesday, July 25th, 2006 at 10:24AM



Finke Makes a Stink
Wednesday 26 July 2006 @ 5:57 pm
There's a woman named Nikki Finke who writes for the L.A. Weekly, and she seems to have taken issue with the MySpace Credits Contest we did for "Clerks II". "This could very well be the most insulting thing I've ever heard," she writes. "A huge diss, to anyone who's ever legitimately earned a credit on a film."

Yes - she's serious.

Aside from the fact that the Lady Finke's finger seems to be pretty far from the pulse (this blog entry's a bit behind the times, considering the contest launched June 30th - nearly a month ago - and was covered by more alert media back then), she's presupposing an industry outrage and ire that simply doesn't exist. No guild has said a word about the credits contest. Know why?

Because there's nothing to be upset about.

What Finke would realize, if she bothered to do her homework (which would require not even a full viewing of the flick, but merely a pop-in during the end credits), is that the MySpace names don't appear in the credits proper of "Clerks II". The film's credits end (with all the proper logos and copyright legalese), the screen goes to black, and then after five to ten seconds, a new crawl (although "crawl" is hardly the term I'd use to describe the speed with which the names zip up the screen) begins.

Why is this an issue for Nikki Finke when nary a guild member nor other film artisan seems to care? It's so sad. Weinstein Co. finds a fun way to spice up the marketing a bit, and this woman tries to kill-joy the whole endeavor.

In addition, of an earlier promotion the Weinstein Co. did at YouTube for "Lucky Number Slevin", she also writes "Yeah, we saw what that promotion did for those movies' bottom-line: Slevin made a pathetic $22 million, and Clerks 2 is well on its way to more failure."

For someone who covers the film biz, I found that statement rather oblivious. Our flick's budget was five million bucks. We did twice that in the opening weekend. The film's foreign sales more than covered its negative cost. Our marketing budget was pretty modest - especially for a summer release. Even if after the box office split the Weinstein Co. will make with the theaters, our thetrical run winds up simply being a wash (meaning all costs are covered), that means everything we made on DVD is pure profit. If "Clerks II" DVD is anything like the DVD on "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back", we're looking at forty million bucks, easily. Forty million bucks in profit. Where's the "failure"?

Aside from "Little Miss Sunshine" (which opens this week), "Clerks II" may be the lowest budgeted wide release of the summer. We were modest across the boards, in shooting and opening the flick. We did this because we had a model in the "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" release. That film turned out to be very profitable, so we simply plugged in lower numbers when doing the "Clerks II" budget, to ensure high profitability for the Weinstein Co. Spending 75% less to make the current flick, spending far less to market the current flick and opening to roughly the same numbers ($11mil for "Strike Back", $10mil for "Clerks II")? In what world is that a "failure"? It may not be sexy huge like the "Pirates" numbers, but when it comes to the business half of the show business equation, being in the plus column is all that matters (on the show side of the equation? Making the film you want to make).

And since when are the credits sacrosanct anyway? If Finke feels the post-credits addition of ten thousand names is some kind of "huge diss, to anyone who's ever legitimately earned a credit on a film", what must she think of my end credits "Thank You" shout-out to God, or to "Jersey Girl" for "taking it so hard in the ass and never once complaining". When a dog is listed in the credits, is this somehow an affront to the performers in a film with speaking roles? I dedicated "Jersey Girl" to my recently deceased Father (a dubious honor, I know) who had nothing whatsoever to do with the making of the picture; should the filmmaking community be livid that such an undeserving cad as my dead Old Man wound up with his name in the credits?

Bottom line? Ms. (or Mrs.) Finke can try to tempest-in-a-douchebag the contest all she wants; it doesn't change the fact that it was a fun thing to do that all involved seem to enjoy. And if nobody (but Finke) is upset about it, where's the harm?

Shit - had I known she was gonna react like that, I'd have thrown her name in the credits too, as follows...

Crackpot With Too Much Free Time - Nikki Finke

[clerkguy23]

i wish kevin smith would just shut the fuck up.

[polkablues]

He has a couple of options: either stop reading every single thing anyone writes about him anywhere, or become a better filmmaker.  As it is, he's just setting himself up for frustration, as well as challenging M. Night Shymalan for the title of "Filmmaker Who Cares Way Too Much About What People Think Of Him."

I bet he's even reading this right now!!!   

Hi, Kev!   

[pete]

man, all these publicity battles between Kevin Smith and the critics have made me wanna see the movie!

[samsong]

  DON'T DO IT! 

[Gamblour.]

There were some jokes/scenes (only featuring Randal and Jay) that I laughed my ass off during. Other than that, this movie was so fucking terrible. Riddled with cliches and overdramatic acting revolving around a plot that was really soap opera-like.

[The Perineum Falcon]

Other than that, this movie was so fucking terrible. Riddled with cliches and overdramatic acting revolving around a plot that was really soap opera-like.

In two sentences you've summed up, perfectly, every Kevin Smith film I've seen.

[Brazoliange]

I liked it. Which surprised me, because I thought that this would be a dumb, pointless attempt at making another hit. 

[Pubrick]

I liked it. Which surprised me

i don't think anyone here finds that surprising.