Hanging Out With Kevin Smith

Kevin Smith is the easiest guy to get along with.

It’s easy to see evidence of this in his movies, be they Clerks, Chasing Amy, or Tusk. They all are bursting at the seems with effortless jokes and bubbly conversations that feel like hanging out with one of his friends. Whether you’re watching his work in the theater or on the other side of a five-minute Zoom call, he makes you feel like an old buddy he’s reconnecting with.

When I mention I’m a defender of Yoga Hosers, his oft-maligned Tusk spinoff about two teen girls (Smith’s daughter Harley Quinn Smith and Lily-Rose Depp) who fight Nazi sausage clones, he lights up. “So you’re the one!” he tells Inverse. “I’ve heard stories, rumors of your existence. I can’t believe we’re finally meeting. That means the world, man. You know how many Yoga Hosers fans there are? We could call all four of them right now.”

It’s this ineffable friendliness and charm that reverberates through all his movies and makes them infinitely rewatchable — yes, even Yoga Hosers. But one of his movies is currently completely impossible to stream: Dogma.

Smith’s religious satire and fantasy adventure made waves upon release thanks to its star-studded cast, which included Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Alan Rickman, Salma Hayek, and even Alanis Morissette playing God. But a rights issue left the movie completely unavailable for digital viewing. Unless you had a physical copy, you were out of luck.

But after fan demand only got higher, another company purchased the rights and approached Smith about a re-release, complete with a tour to theaters across the country and a swanky new Steelbook physical release. Smith spoke to Inverse about Dogma’s new lease on life, his future plans, and what other media has inspired him recently.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and/or brevity.

What is the timeline for the Dogma re-release? When can we expect the digital and physical release?

I’ve taken it on tour [to theaters] for the last month, and then took it to Cannes. Now it comes out June 5 everywhere, on 2000 screens theatrically. But by the end of the year, I’m guessing by Christmas, a hardcore Steelbook Blu-ray will come out. We haven’t announced who our home video partner is, but it’s somebody who believes in physical media still.

[Digitally], people will be able to probably watch it I would say two months from now. But for that fat-ass Steelbook, that’s going to be by Christmas.

I’ve heard rumors of a Shout Factory release, but I won’t tell tales out of school.

I’ve heard those rumors as well, but I, too, will not tell tales out of school.

When you announced the re-release, you teased a possible sequel or spinoff. Do you envision those as movies or TV shows?

At the end of the day, if somebody’s like “Oh, you can’t do it as a movie, but if you can pad it out to eight episodes or six, we’ll stream it,” I’ll be like, “Look, I can give you two great episodes and four padding. Sure, why not?”

But I would hope to do it as a film. Two hours, try to match what we did in terms of the length in the original presentation. I’m hoping that people still like movies by the time we get around to making it. This year, we were at Cannes for the 78th edition of the festival. I’m hoping that with the Dogma sequel, I can return to Cannes for the 80th. So that gives me a two-year window. Fingers crossed.

Amazing.

Well, we’ll see how amazing it is. Right now, we’re in that period where a Dogma sequel could be amazing, but then one day you’re going to see it and then people will be like, “I wish he had stopped with the first one.” But before that happens, it’s a party.

You are known for posting pictures of your emotional reactions to works like WandaVision and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Are there any more recent Marvel projects that have made you cry?

I want to give credit where credit’s due because I’ve been busy with my head up my ass in my own movie and selling that, and I haven’t had a chance to talk about others. Generally speaking, Thunderbolts had me crying because Marvel... I had no idea, no heads up, didn’t see it in the trailers, but as I’m sitting there, I was like, mother f*ck. They made a mental health movie. And that really f*cking touched me as somebody who came out of the booby hatch two and a half years ago and has been dealing with mental health issues.

I was so moved to see that in the midst of this mainstream entertainment, which was fun as f*ck, they took the time to say depression and grief is the real enemy. They frame it with Sentry and stuff, but that moved me. I remember, as soon as that became clear, I rolled a tear in the theater.

I used to take pictures of myself crying and then put it up online like I did with Black Panther 2. But for two days, I got made fun of on the Internet with a bunch of people being like “Stop doing this, c*ck.” So I don’t do that anymore. But I did cry during Thunderbolts.

Have you finished Season 2 of Andor? What do you think of it so far?

I have not finished Andor, but I will, because No. 1, I love Tony Gilroy. I’m a massive Michael Clayton fan. So when Tony did an interview for Season 1 where he said “basically we’re just doing the serious version of Kevin Smith’s scene in Clerks,” I was shocked, so I’ve been deeply involved ever since.

And then somebody texted me; it was Tony. He goes, “Hey, do you have a second to talk about indie film?” And I was like, “For you, absolutely.” And he had a question, I think it was about going into Sundance. He had a smaller movie he was involved in.

So while I had him, I was like, “Tony, you know how much I love Michael Clayton.” He’s like, “I know, you’ve been very kind. You’ve said that many times in the past.” I was like, “Going into Andor Season 2, man, is there any shout-out?” And he said, “No, but Kevin, the whole thing acts as a sort of shout-out, doesn’t it?”

He is such a lovely, talented man who made the first grown-up Star Wars ever. It’s a gold standard that people will be mimicking for the rest of our lives. Or people will be like, “Hey man, they’re going for an Andor thing.” And I’m so delighted he did it because f*ck, he’s a great storyteller.

Dogma re-releases in theaters everywhere June 5.