Kevin Smith reinventing the movie *business*?

[Darren Dirt]

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/01/kevin_smith_red_state.html

Tonight's premiere of Kevin Smith's religion-gone-wild horror flick Red State was by far the most entertaining thing we've seen at Sundance so far. And that was before we'd even entered the building...

After the screening, Smith used his Q&A time to go on a half-hour rant about the perils of working within the studio system.

As he explained, the movie took 25 days and cost $4 million to make. If he sold it for $6 million, it would still take $20 million to market. But since that $26 million doesn't go back to the movie team or the studio or the distributor, you have to make $50 million just to get to the profit line. And it would have to make twice that to be considered profitable. "I never wanted to know jack @%&# about business," he explained. "I'm a fat, masturbating stoner. That's why I got into the movie business. I thought that was where fat, masturbating stoners went. And if somebody had told me at the beginning of my career, you're going to have to learn so much about business, finance, amortization, all that @%&#, monetization, I would have been like, '@%&# it. I'm just going to stay home and masturbate. That's too much work, man.'

Then, with great fanfare, Smith brought up John Gordon, his producer, to open up the auction. "I bid twenty dollars," Smith declared. "Sold!" cried Gordon, slamming his hand on the podium. Smith jumped in, "Ladies and gentlemen, I came here seventeen years ago [with Clerks]. All I wanted to do was sell my movie. And I can't think of anything @%&#ing worse, seventeen years later, than selling my movie to people who just don't @%&#ing get it." (He also called the people who make movie trailers "lying @%&#ing whores," which was pretty awesome.)

And then he proceeded to defend/clarify his statements by using Twitter for what it was never intended...
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/01/kevin_smith_twitter.html

[Mr. Analog]

What's this? Movie-making is a huge heartless business? SOMEBODY CALL 1914 AND TELL THEM TO STOP!

Seriously though, this is where guys like Kevin Smith need to get off their butts and figure out how to distribute film over this here internet thing and bypass the distribution industry (much like many musicians have figured out).

[Darren Dirt]

What's this? Movie-making is a huge heartless business? SOMEBODY CALL 1914 AND TELL THEM TO STOP!

Seriously though, this is where guys like Kevin Smith need to get off their butts and figure out how to distribute film over this here internet thing and bypass the distribution industry (much like many musicians have figured out).

^ kinda what Smith is hinting at I think, that, similar to the music biz, the creative producers have less of a need for the "mainstream" distro outlets that have leeched off them (and cost the consumers unnecessarily) for so long a time... People are smarter than the megacorps think, most of us have the abillity to seek out what is "Coming Soon" without needing a 3 month $40MM marketing goliath thrown in our face for every "hope this one keeps us in the black" roll of the dice pick amongst their huge # of films they are involved in. Or something like that (his Twitterant is more verbose than almost anything I've ever posted on the 'net! O_O )

[Mr. Analog]

Well, it's not just the "megacorps" it's also heavy-handed unions and regulatory processes / fees which make it impossible for someone to just grab a camera, start shooting and have it appear even at something like Cannes.

Where money is to be made vultures swoop in and stifle it. I'm amazed any decent films get made at all actually.

[Darren Dirt]

"Art can?t save the world, but it can make the world a lot easier to take."

http://theredstatements.com/2011/08/10/youve-got-red-on-you/
http://theredstatements.com/2011/06/28/this-labor-day-lionsgate-will-run-red/
^ here Smith goes into great detail about his vision in these final months before The Official Release of Red State; as usual he makes some really good points and observations about the ridic state of the film industry today (esp. re. insanely high costs of marketing/distribution)... and happily describes how maybe he's inspiring others to help change it?