Kevin Smith never really thought the whole film thing would last anyway

Despite an almost comical amount of negative press, COP OUT actually manage to make a decent $18M this weekend, a stat that shows that Kevin Smith clearly has a legion of die-hard fans out there who will see his stuff no matter how horrendous the trailers make it look.

Wired has an interesting interview with the man, and it has some reveleaing quotes about his state of mind these days when it comes to film, and how much the web has influenced him as of late.

Wired: But it seems like other filmmakers are now having greater success with the kind of humor you established.

Smith: My movies never made much more than $30 million; Judd Apatow shattered that glass ceiling. Suddenly, my type of humor, the talky R-rated bromantic comedy, was in vogue.

Wired: Yet your last film, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, was widely viewed as an attempt to emulate Apatow.

Smith: I thought I could make a Judd movie. I even got Judd’s boy, Seth Rogen, to star in it.

Wired: And, uh, it was another bomb.

Smith: Yeah. That one really hit me hard. It wasn’t the money. What bugged me most was that I realized I couldn’t just keep reaching into my chest, pulling out chunks of my heart, and slapping them on a platter.

Always the way with words. I didn’t realize that ZACK AND MIRI was actually in Smith’s mind a “Judd movie” which I guess legitimizes some of the criticism of it. I’ve never really found Smith’s movies to need to have a warm and gooey emotional center like MIRI tried (and failed) to find. I thought CLERKS 2 was amazing, which was just an avalanche of pure crassness with not much else to it. It’s when Smith tries to make films to please others that he goes astray (re: COP OUT). 

In closing, Smith shares his ultimate dream when it comes to filmmaking.

Smith: Yeah, I used Twitter to sell out Carnegie Hall. My dream is to never have to take a real job again. If my next movie bombs and nobody ever gives me another dollar to make more, I wouldn’t care. I don’t need to do it anymore. I was never convinced that the film thing would last anyway. It just made me interesting enough to have a Web site.