You’ve got to wonder a little what’s going on with Kevin Smith. However it seems his experiences over the last few years have changed him a little, to the point where he seems to have gotten a little fed up with everything, from the way film industry works to the little man movie websites which he used to avidly support, but which he now seems to view with scepticism.
Late last week he suprised many when he announced that after the world premiere screening of his new flick, Red State, at Sundance, he would hold a public auction of the distribution rights in the theatre right after the showing. Many wondered whether it was a canny move to push up the price, or if he’d end up with egg on his face if potential distributors didn’t want to do business that way. However after gathering everyone there – including those who presumably only turned up to see if they wanted the rights – he and one of the film’s producers held what was essentially a mock auction, with Smith buying the rights himself for $20. It seems he certainly wasn’t out to make industry friends that evening.
Seemingly fed up with the way movies are distributed, Smith pointed out the fact that on the traditional model, a movie like Red State, which cost $4 million to make, might get $20 million worth of advertising. So instead he wants to do something different, which begins with ‘the Red Sate USA Tour’, where the director himself will go around America in March and April with special one-off screenings of the movie, starting at New York’s Radio City Music Hall on March 5th. If it goes well, he’s likely to add more dates, although it’s not known if the tour will go international.
The screenings will include a Q&A with Kevin, and will come at a premium price (he reckons it’ll cost 6-10 times a normal cinema ticket, which sounds a lot, but is pretty much what he charges for his usual, and very popular, Q&As). He reckons the tour alone should recoup about half what it cost to make Red State. The film will then get a more traditional release in October, although even then Smith says he won’t advertise, but he will publicise and he’ll also offer cinemas more favourable terms than they get from cinemas.
It’s an interesting strategy and seems to be the direction Smith is moving. He also says Red State will be his second to last movie as a director (the final one being Hit Somebody), and after that he’ll concentrate on producing and distribution. With his ideas about crowd-sourcing financing for films and creating an independent ‘people’s studio’, it really does seem as if Kevin’s got increasingly disenchanted with the entire film business as it stands, and so wants to do something to shake it up. It’ll be interesting to see what he does next and how successful it is.