Sounds like Kevin Smith’s hockey film based on the Warren Zevon song “Hit Somebody” might already in the works.
In an interview with the song’s writer Mitch Albom (via JoBlo), the two discuss the film’s development and reveal that shooting will place in Michigan at Joe Louis Arena, home of the Detroit Red Wings.
Wait, so is this thing good to go already? No further details are given but Smith does go on to note that he hopes to “be spending a lot more time [at the arena] in the next year.” It’s still all a bit vague but seems like if all goes well, shooting may begin in 2010.
Smith’s love for hockey shouldn’t be news for anyone and, as he reiterates in the video, has been featured in the majority of his films in one way or another. A hockey film is a perfect marriage of Smith’s passions and seemingly has the potential to re-spark something in the director’s work.
“This is the one, dude, honestly,” Smith explains. “Like I’ve loved everything I’ve made and what not but this one is different. I can feel it. Maybe it’s ’cause I’ve reached a place in my career where I was like ‘you know what, I’m tired of saying things.’ I’m very blessed, got to write every script, got to express the heck out of myself. Everything has happen at the right time and ‘Hit Somebody’ just makes so much sense to me.”
On the other side of spectrum is Smith’s upcoming buddy-cop actioner “Cop Out,” starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan, which is coming across as anything but a passion project. The film’s newly-released first trailer doesn’t even advertise its director’s name until a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it mention in the credits while Smith has already noted publicly that it wasn’t his film but simply a film he was hired to direct.
Obviously, it’s only the first trailer but the film, Smith’s first studio effort, is already waving a white flag with an introduction reminiscent to that of a Wayan Brothers spoof film and a trailer that plays out like a some sort of gag on Morgan’s “30 Rock.”
There’s seemingly nothing Smith about it and even though we knew he was behind it, we were still waiting for a name like Brett Ratner to appear at the end of the trailer instead. In fact, at this stage, the film feels like nothing more than a cousin of Ratner’s “Rush Hour” series.
“Cop Out” comes out on February 26.