— Ch. 1 · The Convenience Store Gambler —
Kevin Smith.
~7 min read · Ch. 1 of 6
Kevin Patrick Smith was born on the 2nd of August 1970, in Red Bank, New Jersey. He grew up in the nearby clamming town of Highlands as the son of Grace and Donald E. Smith. His father worked late shifts at the post office, a job he despised so deeply that it shaped Kevin's own life philosophy. Smith vowed never to work at something he did not enjoy after watching his father struggle to get out of bed some days. This early resolve set the stage for a career built entirely on personal passion rather than corporate obligation.
His path changed forever on his twenty-first birthday when he watched Richard Linklater's comedy Slacker. The film was shot in Austin, Texas, using local locations instead of expensive soundstages. Smith realized he could make movies where he lived if he just started. He assembled a library of independent filmmakers like Jim Jarmusch and Spike Lee to study their techniques. He attended Vancouver Film School for four months but left halfway through to save money for his first project.
Smith returned to New Jersey and reclaimed his old job at a convenience store in the Leonardo section of Middletown Township. He decided to set his debut film there, borrowing the structure from Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. He maxed out more than a dozen credit cards and sold his treasured comic book collection to raise exactly $27,575. Friends and acquaintances filled most roles while he wrote, directed, co-produced, and edited the movie himself. Clerks screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 1994 and won the Filmmaker's Trophy.
The View Askewniverse Films
Clerks went on to play in fifty markets without ever appearing on more than fifty screens at any given time. It earned $3.1 million despite its limited release and received an NC-17 rating initially. Miramax hired Alan Dershowitz to sue the MPAA over the rating. A jury of theater owners reversed the decision during an appeals screening, granting the film an R rating instead. The movie became one of the two most influential film debuts of the 1990s alongside The Brothers McMullen according to producer John Pierson.
His second film Mallrats did not fare as well as expected. It earned only $2.2 million at the box office despite playing on more than five hundred screens. The film found greater success in the home video market. Widely hailed as Smith's best work was 1997's Chasing Amy. This $250,000 film earned $12 million at the box office and won two Independent Spirit Awards for Screenplay and Supporting Actor for Jason Lee.
Smith's fourth film Dogma featured an all-star cast including Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Chris Rock, Salma Hayek, George Carlin, and Alan Rickman. Released on eight hundred screens in November 1999, the ten-million-dollar film earned thirty million dollars. The religious-themed comedy drew criticism from the Catholic League but debuted out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back followed with a twenty-million-dollar budget and earned another thirty million dollars at the box office.