Silent Bob speaks: Kevin Smith on Clerks 2 debut

A few days ago we posted about Harvey Weinstein's decision to debut Clerks 2,  Kevin Smith's long-awaited follow-up to Clerks, at Cannes instead of Sundance, where Smith got his start. Readers have been all over that story laying out their erudite opinions, but now we have a comment from The Man himself. No, not Weinstein, geez - he kinda scares me, to be honest. But Kevin Smith (or at least someone who claims to be Smith and does a remarkably accurate Smith impersonation) commented on the post to clarify some points:

While I regret not debuting at Sundance, Harvey's main point was "Why show the flick in January when it's not coming out 'til August?"  He wanted time to come up with a marketing plan for the flick and felt that he wouldn't have had that time between December 1 and mid-January (the period of rushed post we would've had to rocket through in order to be ready for Sundance).  As he's the guy who writes the checks, I had to respect his position.

However, debuting at Cannes (if they'll have us) makes sense for "Clerks II", as "Clerks" screened at Cannes '94, taking home two awards (the Prix de la Jeunesse and the International Critic's Week grand prize).  We would have been rushing through post to screen in Park City, which would've cost an additional $500k to hit that mid-January date.  By waiting, we saved a bunch of coin, and I was able to tinker with the flick further, and bring it down to 91 minutes.  So all's well that ends well (as long as we get into Cannes).

As for the falsehood that the last flick I made which earned was "Chasing Amy"... um, patently untrue, and easily checked for veracity (or lack thereof) all over the web.  But, in a nutshell...

"Dogma" - budget $10mil, box office $30mil
"Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" - budget $20mil, box office $30mil (DVD sales, $37mil)
"Jersey Girl" - budget $35mil, box office $25mil (with DVD putting us into profit)

Can't wait 'til you all get to see the flick.  I think it's our best work to date.