Given the difficulty the project has had finding funding, and the howls that ensued when writer/director Kevin Smith suggested a fan-based donation system to get the film off the ground, we never expected that “Red State” would not only get financing, but become the next project on the director’s plate.
/Film have put together the pieces from Kevin Smith’s tweets which as of February 17th, stated that, “the only money it’ll require from [fans] will be at the box office,” seemed to indicate the the film was closer to happening than previously revealed. Today, the director hit the social media site again posting, “I talk about lots of stuff I wanna do that either happens years later or never happens at all. Happy to report RED STATE is not the latter,” and followed it up with “First draft was dated 9/5/07. Looks like we start shooting this July. Took nearly three years, but we’re finally gonna roll on RED.”
Undoubtedly, fans hit up the director with questions, one of which was whether or not this was going to be a studio picture or not. Smith played coy responding, “(*Marches across big lawn, up front porch*) I’m home, Momma.” So, we’re guessing it’s an indie though no word yet on which studio has fronted the cash. Perhaps “home” might mean the The Weinstein Company even though he publicly criticized them (and made a backhanded apology) for failing to properly handle his tepid sex comedy “Zack & Miri Make A Porno.”
The film, written way back in 2007, features a character based on hatemonger preacher Fred Phelps, and Smith detailed the film back then:
The movie’s called ‘Red State’ and it’s very much about that subject matter, that point of view and that position taken to the absolute extreme. It’s certainly not Phelps himself but it’s very much inspired by a Phelps figure,” revealed Smith. “And to me, too, the notion of using a Phelps-like character as a villain, as horrifying and scary as that guy can be, there’s even something more insidious than him that lurks out there in as much as a public or a government that allows it and that’s the other thing that I’m trying to examine in a big, big way. It’s weird because for a few months I’ve been saying ‘horror movie’ and technically it is, but it’s also not a very traditional horror movie in the sense that people have been asking me, ‘Is it a slasher movie? Is it like the Japanese horror flicks?’ It’d be much easier to just show it to them when I’m done and be like, ‘This is what I meant.’ At which point I’m sure there’ll be people saying, ‘This ain’t a horror movie!’ But to me, it is.
As for “Hit Somebody,” the Warren Zevon-song inspired hockey film, which presumably had Seann William Scott in the lead role and was set to start filming later this year, it will now come after “Red State.” Smith tweets, “Writing HIT now; shooting HIT on heels of RED STATE. #DoingFlicksAssToAss.” Considering the script is still not done, we’re going to take that tweet with a grain of salt for now. There’s no word yet on casting but with Comic Con New York just around the corner, we wouldn’t be surprised if Smith drops some major news around that time.
We haven’t been too enamored of Smith’s output to date, but we hope that finally getting to work on “Red State”, a dream project of sorts for the director, will spark some new fire from Smith, whose string of filthy comedies have gotten progressively more stale and boring. “Red State” actually sounds pretty damn fascinating and we can’t wait to see Smith maneuver in a genre he’s never done before.
