Kevin Smith

• 1. Introduction

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  Kevin Smith walked out of a cinema on his 21st birthday with a decision made. The film was Richard Linklater's Slacker, shot in Austin, Texas without a studio or a name cast. Smith had grown up in Highlands, New Jersey, the son of a postal worker who had come to despise his job. His father struggled some mornings to get out of bed for work, and Smith watched. He vowed he would never work at something he did not enjoy. Linklater's film showed him a route: film where you live, spend what you have, and bypass the gatekeepers. Smith later said Slacker was "the movie that lit a fire under me." He assembled a study list of independent filmmakers, among them Jim Jarmusch, Spike Lee, and Hal Hartley. The questions his career would spend three decades answering were already forming.

• 2. The $27,575 Gamble

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  Smith attended Henry Hudson Regional High School in New Jersey, where he shot basketball games on video and produced sketch comedy in the style of Saturday Night Live. He later tried The New School in New York City but did not graduate. He enrolled at Vancouver Film School, where he met future longtime collaborators Scott Mosier and Dave Klein, but left halfway through the course. He figured he already knew enough, and wanted to save money for a film. Back in New Jersey, he reclaimed his old job at a convenience store in Leonardo, a section of Middletown Township. The store became the setting for his debut film, Clerks. He borrowed the structure from Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing: a single ordinary day in one place. Financing it required drastic measures. Smith maxed out more than a dozen credit cards and sold his treasured comic book collection, raising $27,575 in total. He cast friends and acquaintances in most roles. Among them was Jason Mewes, whom Smith had met while working at a youth center and befriended over a mutual interest in comic books. Clerks screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 1994 and won the Filmmaker's Trophy. At a restaurant after the screening, Miramax executive Harvey Weinstein approached Smith and offered to buy the film. In May 1994, Clerks traveled to Cannes, where it won both the Prix de la Jeunesse and the International Critics' Week Prize. The MPAA initially gave it an NC-17 rating for sexually graphic language. Miramax hired attorney Alan Dershowitz to challenge that ruling. At an appeals screening, a jury from the National Association of Theatre Owners reversed the decision. The film received an R rating. Released in October 1994, it eventually played in 50 markets, never on more than 50 screens at one time, and earned $3.1 million. Producer and author John Pierson called it one of the two most influential film debuts of the 1990s, alongside The Brothers McMullen. In 2019, the Library of Congress selected Clerks for preservation in the National Film Registry as a culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant work.

• 3. Building the Askewniverse

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  Mallrats arrived in 1995 as Jason Lee's debut in a leading role, but it collapsed at the box office. Playing on more than 500 screens, it earned just $2.2 million and absorbed a critical drubbing. Home video eventually found it an audience. Chasing Amy, in 1997, changed the picture entirely. Starring Lee, Joey Lauren Adams, and Ben Affleck, it was made for $250,000. Quentin Tarantino called it "a quantum leap forward" for Smith. The film earned $12 million at the box office, landed on many critics' year-end lists, and won two Independent Spirit Awards: for Screenplay and Supporting Actor, the latter going to Lee. It also attracted criticism from some in the lesbian community, who felt it reinforced the idea that lesbians merely need to find the right man. Smith, whose brother Donald is gay, found the accusation deeply frustrating. He believed sexuality was more fluid than social convention permits, and saw himself as a pro-LGBT filmmaker. Those tensions carried directly into Dogma, his 1999 religious satire. Its cast included a post-Good Will Hunting Ben Affleck alongside Matt Damon, Chris Rock, Salma Hayek, George Carlin, Alan Rickman, and Linda Fiorentino. Made for $10 million, it debuted at Cannes out of competition and was attacked by the Catholic League. Released on 800 screens in November 1999, it earned $30 million. Running through most of these films were two recurring characters: Jay, played by Jason Mewes, and Silent Bob, played by Smith himself. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, in 2001, moved them to the center of the story. The $20 million film grossed $30 million; Affleck and Damon appeared as themselves, supposedly filming a mock sequel to Good Will Hunting. Clerks II, in 2006, marked Smith's third trip to Cannes, where it received an eight-minute standing ovation. Made for $5 million, it earned $25 million. The films Smith set in New Jersey, sharing crossover characters and plot threads, came to be known as the View Askewniverse. The name came from View Askew Productions, his production company, co-founded with Scott Mosier. With the exception of Mallrats, every film in the series through 2008 was financed or distributed by Harvey Weinstein and his brother Bob.

• 4. The Patron and the Break

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  Harvey Weinstein's companies, including Miramax, Dimension Films, and The Weinstein Company, financed or distributed nearly every Smith film through 2008. Smith is considered, alongside Quentin Tarantino and David O. Russell, one of the writer-directors whose careers Weinstein nurtured. Jersey Girl, in 2004, was the first significant stumble. Budgeted at $35 million and starring Ben Affleck alongside his then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez, the film was described by Smith in his own words as "Gigli 2." Smith heavily reedited it to reduce Lopez's role, but the critical damage was already under way. It earned $36 million. Zack and Miri Make a Porno, in 2008, proved more damaging to the partnership. Opening behind High School Musical 3, it debuted with $10,682,000 from 2,735 theaters, averaging $3,906 per screen. In an interview with Katla McGlynn of the Huffington Post, Smith said: "I was depressed, man. I wanted that movie to do so much better." He blamed tepid advertising for a film whose title media outlets were reluctant to promote. In the aftermath, his working relationship with Weinstein became, in Smith's word, "frayed." Cop Out, a buddy-cop comedy starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan, followed in 2010. Released on the 26th of February 2010, it received poor reviews. Conflicts between Smith and Willis on set drew public attention. It was the last film Smith made with a major studio. Smith returned to independent filmmaking with Red State, a 2011 horror film loosely inspired by Westboro Baptist Church and its pastor, Fred Phelps. At its Sundance premiere, Smith announced he would auction off distribution rights; instead he kept them and self-distributed under his SModcast Pictures banner. The $4 million film earned just over $1.1 million at the box office. Smith later said that touring revenue, $1.5 million in foreign sales, and a $3 million domestic VOD deal had made the budget back. He named his independent production company for Red State "The Harvey Boys" in Weinstein's honor. He also called the conventional film marketing model, which by that point cost four times the film's budget, "decadent and deadening." The personal break with Weinstein came in October 2017, when allegations of rape and sexual assault against him became public. Smith had already severed professional ties after being informed of Weinstein's assault on Rose McGowan. On Twitter, he said he was "ashamed" of his relationship with Weinstein. On his Hollywood Babble-On podcast he said: "My entire career is tied up with the man," and added: "No fucking movie is worth all this." He lamented having spoken of Weinstein publicly as though he were "my father." Smith pledged to donate all future residuals from his Weinstein-produced films to Women in Film, a nonprofit advocating for more women in film production. When those residuals proved lower than expected, he converted the commitment to a monthly cash donation of $2,000.

• 5. Life in Panels

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  In 1999, Smith won a Harvey Award for Best New Talent in comic books. The recognition reflected years of serious work running alongside his film career. His earliest comics appeared in Oni Press, including a Jay and Silent Bob story in Oni Double Feature No. 1 and Clerks-related material in subsequent issues. His largest Marvel project came with "Guardian Devil," an eight-issue Daredevil arc illustrated by Joe Quesada, published in 1998 and 1999. For DC, Smith produced a 15-issue run on Green Arrow, which brought Oliver Queen back from the dead. It also introduced Mia Dearden, a teenager who would eventually take the Speedy identity after Smith's run concluded. Smith returned to Marvel with two miniseries: Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do and Daredevil/Bullseye: The Target, both debuting in 2002. The former ran six issues but hit severe delays, with the third issue arriving two months late. The final issues were held back for at least three years, delayed in part by Smith's work on Jersey Girl and Clerks II. Spider-Man/Black Cat was completed in 2005. The Target remains unfinished, with one issue published. Batman: Cacophony ran from November 2008 to January 2009, illustrated by his longtime friend Walt Flanagan. It featured the villain Onomatopoeia, a character Smith had invented during his Green Arrow run. The trade paperback became a New York Times Bestseller in the Hardcover Graphic Books category. In 2010, Smith wrote a six-issue Batman miniseries, The Widening Gyre, again with Flanagan. It was originally planned as 12 issues; the remaining six, to be released as Batman: Bellicosity, were scheduled for 2016 but remain unpublished. On the 7th of March 2022, Smith and Dark Horse announced a new imprint called Secret Stash Press. Its first releases included Maskerade, co-written with Andy McElfresh, and Stops, a story set within the View Askewniverse.

• 6. The Stash and the Circuit

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  Smith purchased Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash in Red Bank, New Jersey in January 1997 for $30,000, using money he earned from Clerks. The comic book store grew into a physical anchor for his fan community. It later became the setting for Comic Book Men, an AMC reality series that ran for seven seasons from 2012 to 2018. The store has occupied three different Red Bank locations. Its current address, 65 Broad Street, opened on the 22nd of February 2021, after Smith announced the move on Twitter in November 2020. A second location in the Westwood section of Los Angeles opened in September 2004 and closed in January 2009. Smith also built a parallel public life around filmed Q&A sessions. The first, An Evening with Kevin Smith, was released on DVD in 2002 and collected filmed appearances at American colleges. A sequel followed in 2006, shot at shows in Toronto and London. Sold Out: A Threevening with Kevin Smith, in 2007, was filmed on Smith's 37th birthday at the Count Basie Theater in Red Bank. Kevin Smith: Too Fat for 40, filmed at the same venue on his 40th birthday, followed in 2010. Kevin Smith: Burn in Hell rounded out the series, filmed at the Paramount Theater in Austin, Texas. Smith's longest Q&A session took place on the 2nd of April 2005, at the Count Basie Theatre. It ran from 8 pm until 3 am, or 4 am in real elapsed time due to the start of daylight saving, stretching past seven hours. After the session, Smith opened the Secret Stash for a meet-and-greet that ended around 6:30 am. He then caught a plane to Crystal Lake, Illinois, and did another Q&A that same night. Smith made sold-out appearances at Carnegie Hall in 2009 and at the Sydney Opera House in 2010. On the 5th of February 2007, Smith and Scott Mosier launched SModcast, a regular comedy podcast. By 2010 it had grown into a full podcast network. SModcast Internet Radio launched in 2011, and SModCo Internet Television followed in 2012. Smith co-hosts several shows on the network, including Fatman Beyond and Hollywood Babble-On. His book My Boring-Ass Life, which collected posts from his personal blog, reached No. 32 on The New York Times Best Sellers List. Smith directed episodes of The Flash, Supergirl, and The Goldbergs across multiple seasons between 2016 and 2019. He created the Netflix animated series Masters of the Universe, which ran from 2021 to 2024. One public anecdote became particularly famous. In 1996, Smith wrote several drafts of a planned Superman film tentatively titled Superman Lives. When director Tim Burton came aboard with his own writing team, Smith was dropped. He later recounted the experience at a Q&A at Clark University, filmed for the 2002 DVD An Evening with Kevin Smith. Producer Jon Peters, Smith said, insisted that Superman not be shown flying or wearing tights. Peters also demanded the film end with Superman fighting a giant spider. When Smith later saw Wild Wild West, the 1999 film Peters produced, he was startled to find a giant mechanical spider at its climax. Film critic A.O. Scott of The New York Times later called Smith's account of that experience "extraordinary."

• 7. Body, Faith, and Family

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  Kevin Smith married Jennifer Schwalbach at Skywalker Ranch on the 25th of April 1999. She had been interviewing him for USA Today when they first met. Their daughter, Harley Quinn Smith, was born on the 26th of June 1999, and was named after the character from Batman: The Animated Series. The family eventually settled in the Hollywood Hills, in a house Smith bought from Ben Affleck in 2003. Jason Mewes has appeared in nine of Smith's films, his wife Jennifer Schwalbach in eight, and Affleck in seven. Smith's weight became a recurring public thread. He lost 50 lb around the time he met his wife. During production of Clerks II in 2005, he dropped from 319 lb to 269 lb. After watching the documentary Fed Up, he eliminated sugar and began juice fasts in 2014, dropping from 330 lb to 240 lb. On the 25th of February 2018, Smith performed a stand-up comedy show at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, California. The show was later released on Showtime as Kevin Smith: Silent But Deadly. Immediately after the performance, he suffered a severe heart attack caused by a total blockage of the left anterior descending artery. An ambulance took him to the nearby Glendale Adventist Medical Center for emergency surgery, from which he recovered. His doctor told him to lose another 50 lb. He adopted a vegan diet, joined Weight Watchers, and eventually became a paid spokesperson for the brand. Smith was raised Catholic in Highlands, New Jersey, but grew disillusioned in his early 20s. He found Mass "dry and lip-servicey." A priest offered him a metaphor: faith is like liquid in a shot glass, and the glass expands as a person ages. The same amount of knowledge that satisfied a child can feel insufficient to an adult. Smith researched Christianity, explored other religions, read the Biblical apocrypha, and tried joining a Pentecostal congregation. The ideas he turned over during those years fed directly into Dogma, including the shot glass metaphor at the film's opening. He still attended Mass as late as 1998. That eventually tapered to just two occasions per film: the day before production starts and the day before it premieres. In September 2014, he offered a compressed theology: "Proof of God is that I have a career." A year later, he said he had left both Catholicism and theism, citing the death of his dog. He reasoned that his dog had lived without religion; if that sufficed for the dog, it could suffice for him. Vancouver Film School, the institution Smith walked away from in the early 1990s, announced three Kevin Smith Scholarships in 2018, each covering full tuition in Acting, Writing, and Film Production. Smith personally chose the recipients from more than nine hundred applications.