Our look into the the most exciting year for Kevin Smith and View Askew Productions (so far) concludes today, with the second half of the year:

JULY



July began with news of the biggest releases of the year — Nope, not a movie, but Apple’s industry-changing iPhone. Kevin graced the front of USA Today’s website with his smiling face holding a bag of two of the devices (one for him, one for the wife).

With “Live Free or Die Hard” in theaters, Kevin also kicked off the month doing some press for the film, mostly by the way of local and satellite radio.

Our biggest moment of the year arrived on July 7th. On that day, we celebrated 10 years as “News Askew”. To commemorate, we debuted a new design (you’re looking at it) and complete overhaul of our 10 year news database. The new system allows us faster searching, and a much greater flexibility with features. While we’ve been working behind the scenes on bugfixes, news cleanup, categorization, and other surprises, we’re happy to report there’s much in store for 2008. Once again, we thank our fans and supporters for allowing News Askew to continue, and were proud to celebrate this major anniversaary.

As the month rolled out, “Zack and Miri” continued scoring press mentions, along with Kevin’s blog, as well as the famous SModcast, now up to its 20th episode.




Meanwhile, another View Askew vet was celebrating some praise of his own — Ben Affleck was enjoying critical acclaim for his directorial debut, “Gone, Baby, Gone”.




Genre art was all the rage when Smith and Mosier appeared at LA’s first “Crazy 4 Cult” art show, which featured artwork celebrating classic cult films and television. These one-of-a-kind works sold extremely well, with Kevin adding quite a few to his own collection.

Late in the month, Kevin revealed a few more tidbits about the movies of the moment: “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” and “Red State”. On the latter: “I keep trying to, like, [temper] everyone’s expectations, because it’s not horror like ‘Hostel.’ It’s not gore porn. The best comparison I think of is ‘The Shining.’ It’s going for that kind of mood. It’s a very unsettling film.” For the casting on the former, Kevin expressed his interest in Rosario Dawson as Miri, and hoped that longtime Askewers Jason Mewes and Jeff Anderson would also appear.




As the month winded down, fans who were already excited to see Kevin appear in San Diego at the Comic-Con that weekend had a reason to become even more so: The “Reaper” pilot would screen in full at Kevin’s Q&A panel. More rave reviews for the show, along with praise for the director via the cast and crew solidified the fact that the screening would be a huge hit.




San Diego had another surprise in store as well: During the “Heroes” panel, Kevin made a surprise appearance to announce he’d be directing an episode of the forthcoming “Heroes” spinoff titled “Heroes: Origins”. His TV empire was growing. By the end of the year, due to the writer’s strike, the show would be postponed.

In DVD news, Malcolm Ingram’s “Small Town, Gay Bar”, a View Askew documentary, was set for release in early August. We also learned that the long-awaited “Chasing Amy X” DVD would arrive in Summer 2008 as a supplemental disc to the already perfect Criterion Collection. Rather than buy the movie again, fans will simply be able to add this disc into their collection to gather up all the great new extras, which will include a reuinion Q&A filmed at the LA Vulgarthon film festival.

AUGUST



Kevin’s big 37th birthday bash week began with a sold out Q&A session at Red Bank’s historic Count Basie theater. The performance was professionally recorded, supervised by Clerks II documentary filmmaker Zak Knutson. A DVD of the night, “Kevin Smith: Sold Out”, is coming in 2008 and will undoubtedly feature the centerpice of the night - Kevin’s tale on working with Bruce Willis on “Live Free or Die Hard”. Quite possibly, our favorite tale ever told by the man. The following weekend, a handful of lucky fans attended the View Askew prom, where they joined Kevin and Jen for a night of food, drink, dancing, and socializing.

After a memorable week of celebration, things took a slight downturn, as news broke that, due to scheduling conficts with another film, Rosario Dawson would have to turn down the role of “Miri”. By the end of the year, the film would have a new leading lady.

First “Reaper”, then “Heroes”, now…“Battlestar Galactica”? Could it be that Kevin would direct an episode of the best show on television? News leaked that the man waa attached to the show, and it turns out, this was ALMOST true — Kevin would later reveal that on two occasions, he was on the slate to oversee an episode of the show’s final upcoming season. However, due to scheduling uncertainties, both opportunities pass him by.

Following the flurry of the birthday celebration and “Miri” casting surprise, the remainder of August brought more good press. “Small Town, Gay Bar” continued to celebrate positive reviews on its DVD release. Meanwhile, websites continued to call “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” one of the most anticipated films of 2008.

And then…To put a nice bow on the month, Kevin finished writing “Red State”. Kevin calls the script so twisted that, “If I’d never said anything about it in the press and put it out under a pseudonym, I doubt anyone would ever connect me with it.” With the major writing done, Kevin also promised fans a return to a more regular schedule at his online blog sites.

SEPTEMBER

With “Red State” now circling among friends, the script became a hot topic for the first part of September. Friends and colleagues all called the script such a harsh depature that it was indistinguishable from Kevin’s other (might lighter) fare. Folks were calling it one of those bleak scripts that just stays with you, and provokes thought and unsettlement. While short on dialogue, Kevin anticipated around 2 hour running time for the film. At only 89 pages, it’s the shortest feature script he’s ever written. Harvey Weinstein would go on to call the script “Disturbing and challenging”.

With a shrinking DVD window upon us, we also quickly learned details on the eventual home video release for “Live Free or Die Hard”. Among the goodies would be an exclusive video game on the Bluray disc featuring “The Warlock”, as well as an extended, unrated cut of the film itself.


Two scripts in the books, next on the agenda was promotion for “My Boring-Ass Life: The Uncomfortably Candid Diary of Kevin Smith”. The book, which collected previous blog posts and other writings in one place, including the touching “Me and My Shadow” saga, would go on to be the most successful book of Kevin’s career (so far). The book tour would span the US and Canada in both press and signing appearances, then move into the UK in October.

Then, a bit more somber news — Stash West, Kevin’s comic book store located in Westwood, CA, was due to close its doors the following month. The shop’s final event will be a book signing in early October.

Later in September, “Reaper” debuted on the CW to more critical acclaim and praise. Ratings were solid, prompting the show to retain its timeslot throughout its initial first run. Due to the writer’s strike, it’s a 50/50 shot on new episodes of the show being shot for the “back half” of Season one. This writer’s strike is affecting a LOT of stuff, Kevin projects included. A tough year to break into the TV biz.




While celebrating success with two theatrical turns in 2007 with “Catch and Release” and “Live Free or Die Hard”, Kevin also filmed a cameo in a film from Richard Kelly called “Southland Tales”. In the film, Kevin was highly costumed in makeup for his character. After hearing about it all year, we finally saw a photo of how Kevin would appear in the final product. His role would be downsized for time reasons, according to the director, but be definitely restored in full for the DVD release of the epic flick.

Winding down the month, Kevin showed more east coast love with another live appearance, this time at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. The press onslaught continued, with the remainder of September finding Kevin in full-force promotional mode, spending the most part of every day conducting interviews for radio, TV and print media.

Finally, though we now know the show’s delayed until at least late next year, Kevin revealed that the “hero” he’d create for his “Heroes: Origins” episode would be a female. Her power would be something Kevin thought some would consider “lame”, but classic.

OCTOBER

In a new interview with IGN, Kevin reveals that he’d love to shoot long-in-process project “Ranger Danger and the Danger Rangers” following “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” and “Red State”.

Speaking of “Red State”, though funding for “Zack and Miri” had been secured, the horror flick was proving a tougher sell. For the first time, the brothers Weinstein politely passed on “Red State”, as Kevin and Scott expected, leaving the film open for distribution and financiers. Kevin explains that he’s now more excited than ever to make the movie, and plans to get back on it following “Zack and Miri”, where they’ll need to concentrate their efforts for the present time.

As planned, the final event for Secret Stash Westwood takes place — A historical signing of “My Boring Ass Life”, where fans lined the streets of Westwood for their look inside the coolest comic shop in the west for one last time…Though its death would prove to be short-lived. Just a few days after the doors were locked, Kevin announced the rebirth of the Stash inside “Laser Blaser”, a popular DVD store in Los Angeles.

With location scouting just around a month away, we hear news that makes us east-coasters happy once again — “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” will shoot in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, returning crew Askew to the city for the first time since “Dogma” almost 10 years ago. Filming will begin in January of 2008, and run for 40 days.

After just a month of release, Kevin’s new book has appeared on the coveted New York Times’ Best Seller list — Hitting the non-fiction paperback charts. Kevin’s honored, calling it “something I never expected to be”.

At the end of the month, Ben Affleck’s “Gone Baby, Gone” finally hits theaters. Critics and audiences continue to rave about the film.

NOVEMBER



With the shelving of the “Heroes: Origin” project now a reality, Kevin confirms he’d had 3/4 of the script done, and would be ready to complete it should the show come back around. In other TV news, “Reaper” continues to get good buzz and becomes available for online purchase on iTunes.

Swag’s back in the news again, where we learn those Clerks II inaction figures have been set for a street date of Spring 2008. While the wait has been long, we’re sure it will be worth it.

SModcast continues going strong, presenting its landmark 37th episode online. The show remains absolutely free, and available for exclusive download via the Quick Stop Entertainment web portal, run by View Askew.




On November 16th, what many called the biggest news of the year in View Askew broke — The 2 leads for “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” were revealed. The stars of the film would be Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks. Both actors were hot off comedic projects over the past couple of years, so this was a major “get” for the film. In the coming days, Kevin relates his stories of chatting with Rogen and their mutual admiration. With Rogen’s fast rising star now onboard, “Zack and Miri” had just become a MAJOR film event for 2008.

DECEMBER

December would become the least eventful month of View Askew’s year, at least from a news perspective. While Kevin is notoriously vocal during the filming process, the pre-production work tends to be a quieter, busier time.

In an interview with MTV, Kevin reveals that the long-in-waiting animated film “Clerks: Sell Out” will most likely never be, due to rights issues. However, since he does retain the rights to Jay and Silent Bob, he speculates there may be hope for a future animated project with the duo or their counterparts, Bluntman & Chronic.

With the casting annoucements making the rounds, major media outlets begin writing coverage for “Zack and Miri Make a Porno”. The news is positive, especially considering filming has yet to begin. It’s always a good sign to have the media interested in View Askew flicks early on, and this film will be no exception.




While several opportunities had taken place over 2007, December brings the biggest and best crop of auctioned memorabilia that we’ve ever seen. Partnering with an online auction service, many one-of-a-kind icons from past View Askew projects go on sale, eagerly grabbed up by fans.

Following the success with “Dogma”, Kevin once again puts the call out for fans (and local Pittsburgh residents), giving them the chance to appear onscreen as an extra (or “backgound actor” as they sometimes like to be called) for “Zack and Miri Make a Porno”. Fans rejoice and begin clearing their winter schedules should the call come down to appear.

Though incredibly busy, having relocated to Pittsburgh for preproduction, Kevin and Scott manage to record the 42nd episode of SModcast, keeping them right on track with new episodes and gifting fans with a Christmas day present for the ears.

With 2007 behind us, and “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” just two short weeks away from filming its first frames, we close the books on this year of history, and start anew once again. Here comes 2008.

And that, folks, is your 2007 - The Year in Askew. We once again thank you for your support this year, and look forward to spending another exciting one here with you. With one film already rolling, and potentially another to come, not to mention the growing interest in acting and television direction, we’re betting that 2008 will top things yet again. Happy New Year!