I think he just wants to be successful once, not that his other movies weren't success's but he wants a movie that makes a ton of money. I think he wants one movie to gross more then 30 mil. And I'm pretty sure Cop Out will be that movie. I wouldn't call him selling out, he has made 8 movies, and all of them grossed 30 mil

What? He's been pretty clear over the course of his career that he is a shitty director and his forte is writing. He makes no bones about how much he has learned over the years, but still doesn't speak favorably of his own directing skills. Also, if he was trying to be a 'Big Name Director' you bet your ass he would demand his name be used in all marketing materials. Makes me wonder where you people come up with this stuff.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to be more successful. His movies have a low BO plateau and he just wants to cross that threshold at least once. How could anyone have a problem with this?

He's been trying to get Red State off the ground for some time, which sounds like a more personal project, but he can't get funding. The industry is as tight about money as ever. Sometimes you have to take jobs to keep working. If Cop Out is a success -- which, frankly, I am skeptical of -- then it'd be a lot better than having the mild flop that was Zack and Miri be the last thing on his resume.According to Smith, it's because he told them not to. Obviously, Smith isn't impartial, so he could easily be lying, but who knows. Still, it's contradictory: if he's "trying to become a bigger star" then why wouldn't he demand they slather his name on the ads?

I agree to a point. But he wasn't a shitty director. He's put out some decent stuff. Him making fun of himself is his shtick/persona, that's his Silent Bob.

But he is an ass and is VERY opinionated, no way that gets him a big feature. He absolutely is a 'hey. look a me guy'. (and that in itself is not a bad thing)

If you don't think his bottom line is about making big $$$, then you are fooling yourself. He's trying to get back in the news with whatever publicity he can now, and it's working.

I've mostly liked the guy and his movies, but he does seem to be playing the 'woe is me card' a bit too much lately.

Again, if you're referring to the Southwest Airlines debacle, there are many things that Kevin has said or done that are disputable, but I definitely believe he's not doing that for publicity. If you made a movie, and someone misrepresented one of your most embarrassing moments as "publicity", do you think you'd like it? The whole point (I linked a very good read earlier in the thread) is that Kevin is not too fat for Southwest Airlines, as per their own policies, but the basic gist of the news is "too fat to fly". Most people have not listened to the story straight from Kevin's mouth, so the assumption is, he's so big that he spills over the sides of the seat. Not a pretty public image, and it was everywhere, from CNN to Fox News. Kevin Smith, for many people, is no longer associated with making movies, but for being a guy that can't wedge his tubby ass onto an airplane, so much so that it was a danger to the other passengers, another casualty of American overindulgence. If you were fat (but not as fat as people seem to think), do you think that'd be fun? I doubt it.

Also, this comes back around to the fact that his name is not on the trailers. If these news sites don't say "he has a movie coming out called Cop Out", then it's not even promotion. People won't necessarily connect one to the other, unless they're already aware of who he is.

I just ordered the Clerks Blu-ray from Best Buy. I figure with the 8% cashback from Bing, and the 1% from Paypal, plus free shipping, that's a good deal.

His only independent film has been Clerks. Everything since has been studio funded.

But you're not a fan, so clearly Spacey wasn't referring to you.

It amazes me how militant some people get about their hatred in Kevin Smith threads. We get it, you don't like him. Stop making it about yourself.

Remember, the only reason this became news is because Smith went out of his way to make it news. He Tweeted about it left and right and called an emergency podcast for his legions of listeners. These actions have been, and will remain to be, the sole source for this story.

I will admit I am one of the people who can't stand Smith. I didn't used to but after a while I got tired of hearing his constant whining about everything and trash-talking about other filmmakers and critics. Then when people call him out he tries to cover it up and/or say it was a joke. He talks all this shit about Tim Burton including signing the Superman Lives script with "Fuck Tim Burton" and then has a posting saying "oh, it was all in good fun. I didn't mean it. Lets talk about something else."

The problem is that any time you bring any negativity up to a Kevin Smith fan they will jump to defend him with "well, Kevin said this" (something that is guaranteed to happen with my post). Unfortunately, a lot of it is said after the fact to play damage control. He throws in some jokes about himself to sell this idea. Basically he talks smack, gets annoyed when people turn it against him or defend the other guy, plays it off like it was a joke because he is tired of defending what he said, then rinse and repeat. I think some of us would just rather him not start crap and complain all the time and concentrate on making better movies.

I think you misunderstand the way the media works sometimes. Signing screenplays with "fuck Tim Burton" is a joke -- and blatantly obvious as one, in my opinion -- but then people take it seriously, as if he's on the verge of getting into a fistfight with the guy. He Tweeted about SWA because he was angry and offended, and he had the right to be. Then SWA did a blog post that spread false information (again, the Huffington Post article from before gets the story right, IMO) and he started to correct it. The dispute is not so much that the issue is out in the public, but that people think he's yelling about it because he wants to promote Cop Out rather than express indignation.

Should he be focused on making better movies? Probably. But I don't think he's really backpedaling on much of this stuff.

When you go to a restaurant and have a terrible experience or a theater and have some asshat talking next to you through the whole film what do you do afterwards? Tweet it? Facebook? Come here and post about it? How is that any different than what Smith did? We all have experiences that we have to fume about.

Emergency podcast? I know he mentioned it on there, but come on. He has a podcast every Sunday, he was hot about the situation and wanted to vent about it so he put it out there.

Exactly. I'm skinny, but I'm with Smith on this one, the idea that he'll take hundreds of articles and media attention that focuses on his obesity simply to put a few more asses in theater seats is beyond absurd, especially given his name isn't even attached to the movie marketing.

I don't get this either. Sure he's opinionated and definitely a 'hey, look at me' guy, but to whom? Who exactly is he a 'look at me' guy to? His fans, and what's the harm in that? He is largely ignored by mainstream 'hollywood' type media. He's not an Entertainment Tonight staple, or even a blip on the TMZ radar. No one prints his 'outspoken' diatribes either.

He's never been a media whore(outside of doing the standard press junkets and a couple Leno bits) and this debacle is probably more attention he's received in his whole career. Not exactly something you want to be known for. Unless you are seeking out his podcast or going to his live shows/appearances, then how is he even on your* radar?

*your, as in, anyone that has this huge hate for him.

Personally, I don't post all that much on Twitter and Facebook for but for the sake of argument I will agree with you that I have many friends that would post about a bad experience like this. The difference, however, is that Smith is a public figure and naturally his postings and podcasts immediately become public news/knowledge and he certainly knows this. If he was very embarrassed or didn't want people to know about it, he could have chosen to not discuss this on his various news outlets and only discussed it with his close friends. This story was created by Smith and Smith alone. I personally feel that refunding his money and giving him a $100 voucher should have been sufficient but Smith needed to press on and rally his fans for his cause like he does whenever he isn't happy.

I think Smith headed it off before someone on the flight reported it to TMZ.

Kevin is brutally transparent about his life, sharing things that sometimes make me wince, things I would never share, even with close friends. That is who he is. He was blogging before it was a buzzword. Tweeting too.

He wanted it to become public, because Southwest lied to him, and as a customer, that kind of information is valuable to other consumers, and more importantly, to prevent the same painful, embarrassing experience from happening to other people. But he didn't do it to sell Cop Out tickets.

Forget the podcast he made on the night. It rambles, the Huffington Post article says the same thing in five minutes. The essential one is the one he made a day or two later, with the woman who was with him on the flight he eventually left on. It paints a pretty despicable picture on Southwest's end, and I felt really bad on her behalf.

We don't know anything, he could very easily have said "Please put my name above the title" this and that, and then the studio could have looked at his last few movies, especially Jersey Girl and said "No, we don't think so". He said himself that he made Zack & Miri because he thought it was going to be his big break because of Seth Rogen and everything and then he went into this depression because it wasn't even though the movie made money, it just wasn't the huge hit he wanted it to be, which implies he wants to be a bigger name director. Now he's made a movie with Bruce Willis, which how bigger of a name actor can you get? So he is clearly trying. Again, why risk your career with making a really big budget movie and hoping it will be successful when all your lower budget movies were always successes?

I know that, but all of his movies just feel like independent movies because they are all lower budgeted movies and have a cult following.

I am a fan of his movies. Don't get me wrong the man is an amazing writer. But he is just full of himself and this is a recent revelation. I used to like him a lot.

http://www.theonion.com/content/amvo...ed_from_flight

I think Ben Affleck was a bigger star around the time of Dogma than Seth Rogen is now anyway. Although, Dogma had more of an ensemble cast, and that movie had problems with the controversy anyway.

At his show in Seattle he said more specifically that he felt like the industry was moving on from him, yet they were looking at a guy who many people realize does a very similar thing to Smith, and he thought, "this is my moment" more than "I need the spotlight", that if Judd Apatow can make a movie about people talking, maybe this was his chance to break the $30m roof that usually hovers over his movies, for personal gratification.

I can buy that Kevin Smith asks the studios not to put his name on the ads because he declines the "a film by Kevin Smith"/"a Kevin Smith film" credit on all of his films. He has been upfront about how he approached it as a director-for-hire gig, so not only is there the part of him that (as evidenced by the crediting thing I just described) doesn't want to take sole credit for a movie where hundreds of people worked to make the final product, as well as the fact that he actually has less duties on this one than any film he's ever done. I'm just extrapolating, but it makes sense to me.

He's even said that the little "page turn" image of his face on the Jersey Girl DVD embarrasses him to no end, and that he did it only because Harvey demanded it.