Kevin Smith Moves Past ‘Fletch,’ ‘Hornet’
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com)- Kevin Smith knows a few things about fanboy expectations.
“I’m in the business of announcing things and then never doing them,” Smith cracks to a WonderCon audience in San Francisco that seems prepared to forgive him for any failed promises. “I’ll make an announcement right here: By next year at this time, I will have lost 200 pounds. Never gonna happen.”
Similarly, it appears that audiences will never get to see Smith’s versions of “Fletch” or “Green Hornet.”
“I parted ways with ‘Fletch’ because of five, six years of trying to get Jason Lee cast, it was just apparent it wasn’t gonna happen,” says Smith of Gregory McDonald’s “Fletch Won,” on origin story for the wise-cracking reporter made cinematically famous by Chevy Chase. “It thought this year might be the one that tipped the scale, because he’s in ‘My Name Is Earl’ and he has billboards all over the f***ing country.”
While “Earl” has convinced television audiences and critics that Lee is a star, Smith’s boss Harvey Weinstein has proved a tougher nut to crack.
“For years I kept saying, ‘Jason Lee is Fletch’ and Harvey kept saying ‘No.’ And then finally I’m like ‘Jason Lee is Fletch? ‘My Name Is Earl’?’ And he was just like, ‘Nah. It’s still not gonna happen.'”
The “Fletch Won” property remains viable for the Weinsteins, with Zach Braff as the newly speculated lead, but Smith has moved on. He’s also taken a step back from writing and directing duties on the “Green Hornet” film.
“As I started writing it, I was like, ‘I cannot direct and action movie. I have no idea how to do it,'” Smith says. “I’m not good at it and I don’t have patience. My version of it would be like Green Hornet and Kato leaning against the Black Beauty — the amazing supercar and home arsenal that can do almost anything and just leaning against it talking about sex.”
He continues with his scenario, “Like, ‘Did you get laid last night?’ ‘Yeah. In the mask.’ And Kato’d be like ‘I think there’s some trouble over there.’ And Green Hornet’s like, ‘Yeah, let’s check it out.’ They both just walk off camera. We still hold on the car. Then from off camera you hear [He mimics the sounds of a comic fight]. Then they walk back in and dust themselves off.”
If the laughter and applause are any indication, the WonderCon audience sounds perfectly content with Smith’s “Green Hornet” vision. Studio executives? Not so much.
“Nobody wants to entrust you with $70 million to make that kind of movie,” he notes. “So I realized I’m so not the guy for it, but I did write the script and I turned it in. I was really happy with the script, but I don’t know where it is right now.”
“It’s not like a presold franchise, you’d really have to make a great movie. And I can’t make a great movie. I’ve tried for 12 years.”
Smith’s next stab at making a great movie, “Clerks II,” will open this fall.
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