Via @FiendishDrWu “Any chance of Mewescast being resurrected?” He’s shooting two gigs, so no time. But I’ve still got 2 more pods coming…

Via @KIRedford “saw #COPOUT but i didnt see Morgan funny “hand-twitch” as mentioned in SMod. Why?” Scene was shortened. Deleted scene now.

Consider for a moment that both Bryan & Walt, and Malcolm & his Mom both saw their podcasts debut at #20 in iTunes. Out of what? 2million?

Via @DaveHarper1888 “DUBLIN shows. WHEN?” We’re looking at Sept/Oct/Nov at the moment. That’d be London, Glasgow, Dublin again, + new stops.

Via @billlehecka “$9.1mil weekend. #CopOut looks profitable. Better: profitable or have critical acclaim?” The former means you work again.

Don’t forget — Kevin exclusively offers a dirt cheap swag item each day via his Twitter feed , but only to the first 37 twitter users who buy it. Then, it’s gone. That, and the daily laughs, are but two of the many reasons you gotta be following @ThatKevinSmith if you’re not already. While you’re at it, don’t forget, @NewsAskew is on there too.

Congrats to Kevin and all the cast and crew of “Cop Out” for getting the job done. Box office analysts are calling the film a win as well, citing that it’s one of Willis’ best openings in years. This weekend’s numbers also tell us that word of mouth is good, and that audiences are continuining to check out the movie despite some other big releases looking to push it out of the way. With many international releases still on the way, and the eventual DVD/Bluray versions, we’re expecting continued kudos to Kevin, and crossing our fingers for good news on the “Hit Somebody” and “Red State” projects here in 2010. Stick around, it’s gonna get even more interesting around here. More news later today.

Kevin Smith on the media’s coverage of ‘Fatgate’: ‘They’re really pathetic’

“We all took pay cuts to keep it R-rated, which with me meant I gave up 80% of my salary, but it was worth it,” he says, explaining that, thanks to some tax rebates, the movie cost roughly $37 million to make. He certainly wasn’t worried about his actors having good chemistry, always a key ingredient with a buddy picture. “Tracy just oozes chemistry,” he says with a hearty laugh. “He could have chemistry with a ceramic ashtray. Bruce loved him. He kept calling him kid, even though Tracy’s over 40, so there’s not really that big an age difference. But I think calling him kid meant Bruce liked him.”

Smith insists that he didn’t have any problems communicating with Willis, at least once he realized that Willis wasn’t going to do anything that he felt was out of his comfort zone. Smith illustrates the issue with an unbelievably raunchy metaphor involving a detailed description of oral sex, then teasingly said, “Try and get that into your old-media story.” I asked him if he could offer a PG-13 version of the story.

“Put it this way,” he said. “On the first day of shooting, I started to mess with Bruce, trying to get him to do something crazy, and he took out his gun and went bang — and shot me in the head. His point was pretty obvious. He’s done this part so many times that he knows what works and what doesn’t. He’s the caretaker of the Bruce Willis persona. He’s been a star for 25 years while most of his peers have fallen by the wayside, so he knows what works for his image. Basically, we all tried to make him laugh, figuring if we got Bruce just to smile once we’ve have something to tell our kids about.”

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Kevin Smith: I almost wanted to “curl up in an asylum” when Southwest controversy was brewing

Q: So does that mean we can expect you to do another movie with them?

KS: It was easy this time. I don’t know what it would be like if I went in with something I wrote, or let’s say something I didn’t write but wanted to write. They were talking about “Hit Somebody,” the hockey movie I wanted to make based on the Warren Zevon song. And I said, “I know you like me right now. But I sweat blood for this. If you say you’re committing to it then you’re saying you’re greenlighting this movie.” So we said we’ll talk.

Q: What’s “Hit Somebody” actually about?

KS: It’s not a movie about the NHL. It’s a movie about the game, and it’s a movie about Canada. I look at it and keep describing as what I’m going for as the “Forrest Gump” of hockey movies. Not flat-out funny stuff I’ve always done. It’s a more serious comedy.

Q: If you get that one going, does that preclude you from coming on to direct another studio comedy that already has a script written?

KS: There are about five scripts that Warner Bros. has handed me that they’re interested in. One of them is with Tracy [Morgan]. The romantic in me wants to paint it as a “Platoon”-like battle for one soul, a battle between Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe. But it’ll come down to what happens next. If best-case scenario, I’m shooting “Hit Somebody” by the end of the year, then what am I going to do between now and then? Maybe nothing. Or I can multi-task and spin another plate while waiting for it to come together. And there’s also “Red State” [a dark political drama he's written]. There’s some very interested money that wasn’t interested a week ago, before “Cop Out” came out.

Frame’s wide releases, Warner Bros.’ buddy comedy “Cop Out,” starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan, as well as Overture’s horror-thriller pic “The Crazies,” turned in solid estimates with $18.6 million and $16.5 million, respectively.

Kevin also mentions that the WB was very pleased with the weekend’s take, especially the rise in ticket sales on Saturday, which is always an excellent sign that a movie was well-received:

Thanks for all the well-wishes. Got called by happy WB big guns. 35% spike on Saturday means good things. Thanks for the support! #CopOut

Let’s hope one of those “good things” is a chance for “Hit Somebody” to become a reality with the WB. Of course, competition always gets tougher when new movies hit theaters next weekend, but that doesn’t mean you can’t see the film again, or spread the word to your friends and co-workers this week. When you’re having trouble getting into work mode on Monday, let folks know you saw “Cop Out” and that it’s hilarious. Let’s just see if we can’t rake in a few more bucks. If bad weather kept you indoors over the weekend, treat yourself to a movie this week as a reward to yourself for all that digging. “Cop Out” is now playing all over the place.

Kevin spent some time on Twitter yesterday to talk directly with fans who dug the film. We won’t list all those tweets here, for that you can visit his Twitter directly, but here’s some of the some significant from the day:

Hey! Thanks, all, for braving the elements and peeping #COPOUT last night. Best opening of my career! Means a lot to the whole COP OUT crew.

Via @bLouMagic “I wanna see Cop Out but I’m snowed in.” Saturday’s good, too. Sunday as well. If not, then next week. Peep it if you can.

Via @Svayvan “I feel obligated to see Cop Out because of all the free smod” I like the way SNrub thinks! #COPOUT

Via @proudcanadianer “number of sources saying 20mill for #copout congrats buddy!” With that weather back east, I’m just hoping for $18mil.

Via @amadcow2 “loved Cop Out, great cast, great pacing, & really really funny.” Thanks! Getting this from vast majority of you, & I love it!

Via @TobysKat “just watched CopOut gonna go see it again. I laughed so hard, so did the entire audience!” Excellent to hear. WB & I thank u.

Via @markhoward “Saw #Copout last night in Northern NJ crowded house even with the snow. Really liked the flick, good job” JERSEY REPRESENT!

Via @dvdmike “are you and the studio happy with the numbers on #copout ” I can’t speak for the studio, but I will: it’s all happy emails.

Many of the more critical reviews for “Cop Out” seemed to be reviewing Kevin himself rather than the film’s content, which struck us as quite strange. That being said, we wanted to point out some major venues that dug the movie and share some links and clippage for ya:

LA Times – “Cop Out” Review

“Kevin Smith’s lowbrow buddy-cop comedy is ridiculous fun.”

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The Detroit News – “Review: ‘Cop Out’ brings foul-mouthed wit to the buddy-cop genre”

“‘Cop Out” is foul-mouthed, puerile, crude, haphazard, superficial, silly and funny a lot of the time.

Of course it is. It’s supposed to be that way.

That’s why the producers hired indie wisenheimer, director Kevin Smith (“Clerks,” “Chasing Amy,” “Zack and Miri Make a Porno”) to helm what would otherwise be a standard black-and-white, buddy-cop flick.

Smith certainly does his thing here, delivering a film that’s part celebration and part parody of the well-worn genre.”

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Minneapolis Star-Tribune – “‘Cop Out’ Review: Fast, cheap and out-of-control funny”

“”Cop Out” is a silly waste of time. In other words, it’s just what we need right now. An outrageously smutty comedy that riffs on cop movie clichés even as it uses them to anchor its loopy plot, it’s got automatic weapons, Tracy Morgan in overdrive and Bruce Willis rolling his eyes in a way that says, “I’m surrounded by crazy people.”

PLEASE do go see “Cop Out” today, for the first time, or go at it again with some new friends…And if your schedule allows, do yourself a favor and watch some of the best hockey ever played today at 3 PM EST, when the USA takes on Canada for the gold medal! The last match was insane, this one’s shaping up to be even crazier. Must see TV.

Ads are continuing to run for “Cop Out” up to the wire (on Thursday night prime-time network programming as we write this) and hopefully throughout the weekend to keep awareness high. We’re assuming a large general audience penetration for this one, given the starpower and the amount of , it’s promotion Warner Brothers has put into this one. At this point, it’s on YOU. So get into that movie theater, dear readers.

Wanna pass on some “Cop Out” love via YouTube to help speed Friday along in the office? YouTube shares this new quick featurette that gives newbies a taste of what it’s all about. See you in the theaters, folks.

Kevin Smith’s Cop Out So Clich�-Filled It Just Might Work!

Cop Out establishes its movie lineage right away, with a slow-motion toe-to-head tilt up, set to the Beastie Boys’ “No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn,” of black-cop/white-cop buddies Jimmy and Paul swaggering stone-faced toward the camera. Director/editor Kevin Smith (who notably didn’t write the Cop Out script; this is the Clerks auteur’s first feature-length work for hire) immortalizes his heroes as stock crime-flick badasses in their very first frame.

So far, so middling�until Smith complicates matters by following that shot with an opening sequence that sends Cop Out swerving into smarter territory: Determined to prove his bad-cop “acting” chops to a skeptical Jimmy (Bruce Willis), Paul (Tracy Morgan) interrogates a perp by subjecting him to an unrelenting marathon of movie character impersonations. Beginning with Al Pacino in Heat and moving, logically, through In the Heat of the Night and Training Day, Paul’s “homage” (which he pronounces “homm-ige”) eventually jumps off the rails. Jimmy, on the other side of the interrogation-room glass, can only gape at his partner’s increasingly non sequitur charade: “Dirty Dancing? Star Wars? Everything on cable?!?”

And so Cop Out announces itself as both loving “homage” to “everything on cable”�particularly ’80s action comedies, referenced most directly by Harold Faltermeyer’s cheap synth score and an honest-to-goodness plot song (called “Soul Brothers” and sung by Patti LaBelle)�and a sly subversion of genre. It’s a movie that shamelessly trafficks in the clich�s of other cop movies, while also engaging both characters and audience in the spectator sport of catching references to those very movies. Cop Out only works as well as it does�and it works exponentially better than it should�because the movie-trivia game is played smirk-free, with palpable joy from everyone involved.

Jimmy, a swinging-dick career NYPD cop threatened by his ex-wife’s young, rich new husband (Jason Lee), tries to sell a priceless, long-treasured baseball card so he can pick up the tab for his daughter’s wedding. That plan immediately goes horribly awry, thanks to interventions from Seann William Scott and the scene-swiping Guillermo Diaz as a textbook Mexican movie gangster with a baseball obsession. Jimmy and Paul have no choice but to Break All the Rules.

The plot is almost an afterthought, an obvious MacGuffin intended to steamroll a path for the charisma and chemistry of the two leads. Morgan has been brutally undervalued for his work on the otherwise heavily awarded NBC series 30 Rock, possibly because it’s assumed that the incorrigible comedian he plays is just a riff on himself. In Cop Out, unchained from the temporal constraints and standards and practices of network TV and, according to the press notes, given free rein to improvise, Morgan of course works broad and blue, but he really surprises with his timing and self-control. There are comic set pieces in Cop Out that play out at a snail’s pace, turning awkward and uncomfortable for long stretches in order to build toward a big funny, and Morgan not only hangs on, but steers. Willis’s main order of business is to stay cool and look good�to provide a solid backboard for Morgan’s delirious lunacy�and this he does well.

Like most of Smith’s movies, from Clerks to Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back to Zach and Miri Make a Porno, Cop Out tracks a small arc of maturation for dudes who filter their own lives through popular culture. There was a sincere love letter to the transformative power of filmmaking baked into Porno, but its impact was diluted by what felt like strained overtures to the Apatow audience. On the contrary, Cop Out works as a love letter to film fandom, and, amid the ample violence and genitalia jokes, its strength is its sincerity. Working with a full-on studio budget for the first time in his decade-and-a-half career, Smith is still making movies about guys just like him. It may be masturbatory, but it’s also some kind of creative integrity.

Kevin tweeted his own take on critical love/hate this morning, quite succinctly:

“Here’s the thing… *inhales* I’ve made movies that have been panned before, by critics who are still working, and some who I’ve outlasted. I came from a world where critics could make or break you (Janet Maslin’s CLERKS review in the NY Times made me). That world’s long dead. A movie like COP OUT, while an easy target for critics, is clearly not intended to impress those prone to show off their cinema erudition. Critics can stab at COP OUT with their poison pens all they want, but it still doesn’t change the fact that it’s a funny flick.”

“Movie Marketing Madness” takes a look at the marketing campaign we discussed briefly above today, where they take a look at the poster, trailers, media, and online presence of “Cop Out”. It’s quite a lot more detail than you’d expect, with detailed reactions to all the different types of promotions used to make audiences aware that the movie was heading into theaters this month.

This week, Kevin told the LA Times a little more detail about how “A Couple of Dicks” became “Cop Out”. We hadn’t heard this bit before:

…Unfortunately, “Cop Out” was a title registered to the great comedy director Blake Edwards, who wasn’t interested in giving it up to Warners, owing to some old bad blood. Luckily, Michael Pitt, Smith’s first assistant director, had an Edwards connection: His father, Lou Pitt, was Edwards’ agent. When Smith heard that Lou Pitt and Edwards were having dinner together, he immediately called.

“I got on the phone with Mr. Pitt and said, ‘Would you please pass along to Mr. Edwards that “S.O.B” is my sixth favorite movie of all time and that “Victor/Victoria” is in my top 25 and if there was any way that he would help out a fellow filmmaker and save him from being stuck with a lame title, I’d really appreciate it.’ “

The personal plea worked. Edwards agreed to let Smith have the title. “It was a huge save for us,” Smith says. “He’s not just a great filmmaker, but he’s a class act too.”

One of our scoopers noticed the marketing blitz happening around New York City while in town this week, and sent us a few snaps of the various giant billboards. Good marketing campaign as far as awareness, for sure. If the goal was to stretch beyond the internet audience and to John Q. Moviegoer (and the little old lady in the office), we’ll say, mission accomplished.