You know who Silent Bob is. He's the chubby, bearded, quiet guy in all of Kevin Smith's acclaimed Jersey films: Clerks, MallRats, Chasing Amy,Dogma, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which is released on DVD today. But did you know that Silent Bob is actually writer/director Smith himself?
You do now, and that's a good thing, because Smith is quite the formidable entertainment industry figure these days. He's gone from filming black-and-white comedies in convenience stores with $27,000 budgets to the Dimension-produced Jay and Bob in the space of seven years. That's certainly a good luck streak, but it's also a feat deeply rooted in his talent to tell it as it is.
So why are all of Smith's films based in New Jersey?
"It really isn't a matter of improving the image of the Garden State," he said in a teleconference last week. "We wanted to make movies where we grew up. I'm not the biggest flag waver for New Jersey."
As a matter of fact, Smith's upcoming feature doesn't stray from the Jersey theme; it's called Jersey Girl. Slated for release next year, the film is allegedly based on Smith's marriage to Jennifer Schwalbach, who makes a cameo in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
"The movie itself is kind of a 180 from Jay and Bob. It's kind of the best thing I've written so far,
the most successful thing I've written so far in that I'm not dealing with the universe I've built in the last five movies."
While Smith's universe is certainly entertaining, he's the first to admit that it might be a little narrow: plotlines continue and characters develop through different films. For example, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back follows the story of the two stoner pals as they try to stop Hollywood from producing a movie based on their lives and the "Bluntman and Chronic" comic book.
Sound complicated? Smith agrees. "If you didn't see Chasing Amy, you're like, why the f--- did these guys have a comic book written about them? ...after five movies of the Jay and Silent Bob antics, I just have to move on."
But Smith is in no rush to completely abandon Jay and Bob just yet: last year's feature film, basically a vehicle for their smoked-out, inane characters, did gross $30 million at the box office.
"We always thought of it as the Muppet Movie on acid. That was the model," Smith joked.
Like his more recent films, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is laden with celebrity cameos. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon play both roles from their earlier Smith films and play themselves. Saturday Night Live star Will Ferrell, whom Smith called an "under-appreciated genius," plays a quirky federal game marshal. Jedi master Mark Hamill plays would-be supervillain Cock-Knocker. How do so many big names end up on the set?
"Some people are written in from the get-go," Smith said. "Some just fall in, like Mark Hamill."
Since he places a high value on the content of a DVD, Smith was sure to include as many outtakes, still photos, trailers, and music videos as he could on the Jay and Silent Bob DVD. However, he does foresee a day when studio executives will force producers to cut corners on collector's DVDs, effectively eliminating all bonus content.
"I'm not that guy," Smith affirmed. "I do it for sheer pleasure. When I got my check for Silent Bob, I watched the extras and fell in love with the movie again." Smith's hope is that his fans do exactly the same thing.
