What we like about the story is that Kevin gives several new quotes on the alternate cover and the Walmart decision and makes a heck of a lot of sense. After all, why not market what the film is, not selling it to people who will see the title (and cover) and not know what they’re in for? Among other things, Kevin once again confirms that the Askewniverse is closed (along with Jay & Bob), and drops a VERY interesting tidbit about some offers he may have regarding new gigs:

“‘Zack and Miri’ did some weird things for my career in as much as I guess lots of folks at different studios finally considered it a like, movie-enough movie, where they could be like, ‘Hey, would you like to direct movies for us?”‘ said Smith, who made his first film, “Clerks,” for just US$27,575 in his home state of New Jersey.

All Canadian releases of the disc will feature the complete title.

So, whatcha think about these new directing gigs that might be coming across Kevin’s desk, eh? We’re certainly intrigued. 2009 could shape up to be an even more interesting year…

SModcast 74: Rurally Gay - In which proctology is discussed at length.

“‘The Green Hornet’ has many people working for it, including production designers, costume designers and many conceptual artists, office staff, etc.,” he said during our e-mail exchange back and forth. “[The studio heads] have every intention on making it, and assuming we’re able to hire a new director in the upcoming weeks, which seems like a distinct possibilty, it should still hit the release date.”

In some ways this is the Firefly of animated series — aired out of order and then quickly discarded by a network that didn’t feel it fit with their programming. Only six episodes were produced, and only two of them aired, but there was a lot of very funny material in Kevin Smith’s adaptation of his own film. A rather brilliant second episode parodied that old television staple, with the characters trapped together, reminiscing on past events — only here, with only one episode having been produced, all of their memories are of that previous week’s events… before things get really hysterical and surreal. Starring the entire main cast of the Clerks films, not to mention Alec Baldwin as the Lex Luthorish Leonardo Leonardo, Clerks was able to do a lot more broad comedy and parodies than the films, with episodes evoking everything from Fast Times at Ridgemont High to the unfortunate results of a Transformer transforming with a person inside him.

Ah “Clerks: TAS”, we hardly knew ye. If only we could get more of this gem. If you haven’t watched your DVD of these in a while, do it again sometime soon. They hold up amazingly well and are funny as ever.

The spam subject line “Make your pants dragon huge and rock hard” earns the sarcastic response “Is a pants dragon anything like a pussy troll? (Look it up.)”. It’s on page 8 of the free preview and page 34 of the full book.

SModcast 73: Irma-licious -

In which Buddy has a bad day and our heroes are beside themselves at the news… until the Quickening kicks in.

Quick Stop Entertainment is your only spot in the whole Internet world where you can nab the great SModcast, so get over there and get your copy in MP3 format. THEN, listen to the immediate BONUS SEQUEL, SModcast 73.5:

SModcast 73.5: SMod-Half -

In which new ground is temporarily broken at the expense of sound quality.

Enjoy this double-shot of SModcast, with thanks to the guys for their continued weekly dose of audio entertainment! Catch ya back here soon…

Preorder today from the Stash, and your discs will ship to you on release day. SIGNED BY KEVIN!

SIGNED Bluray - $34.99

SIGNED DVD - $29.99

Shot Glasses - $4.49 each

Kevin’s given us a TON more information on the contents of the Bluray and DVD, so move on to the next story and see why you just gotta own this movie…

- 43 Deleted scenes (totaling 95 minutes)
- 22 Money Shots Webisodes (50 minutes)
- Feature-length documentary, Popcorn Porn: Watching Zack & Miri Make A Porno (75 minutes)
- Comic-con Panel 2008 (23 minutes)
- Gang-bang: Outtakes & Bloopers (13 minutes)
- Seth vs. Justin: Battle for Improvisational Supremacy (8 minutes)
- Blu-ray only: BD Live—which will gives us the option of having downloadable bonus features at some time in the future

Totaling 4 hours and 21 minutes of bonus

Full disclosure: The extra feature - Seth vs. Justin: Battle for Improvisational Supremacy (8 minutes) is only one of two parts. Due to Weinstein Co’s exclusive deal with Blockbuster, there’s a Blockbuster-Exclusive Extra Feature called “Seth vs. Justin: Battle for Improvisational Supremacy Pt. 2.” So if you’re a BlockBuster cat, there’s that. I have no control over these things.

Here’s some general comments from Kevin in response to WWWBoard queries on the disc.

On a single vs. double disc DVD: “I was informed it couldn’t be one disc and have all the material we wanted on it - at least according to the folks at Weinstein Co./Genius Home Video.”

On the extras: “There’s well over an hour of extra footage. The doc itself is an hour. I don’t know what the “Money Shots” combined are, but it’s a bunch. Then there’s the flick, the San Diego ComiCon Q&A, behind-the-scenes featurettes. This DVD has, essentially, all the elements that all of our DVDs have had, except a commentary track and intros.”

See Kevin’s post for more details on his feelings on the lack of a commentary track this time around.

Finally, in his post Kevin also shared the absolutely fantastic Hong Kong poster for the film, which he would have loved as the Bluray DVD’s cover (but would have gotten sued over it). Check this work of art out.

“Zack and Miri Make a Porno” hits DVD and Bluray on Tuesday, February 3rd.

“Pairing director Kevin Smith and Seth Rogen was either going to result in something wildly overrated or sheer genius, and it wound up being the latter. “

• A bunch of deleted and extended scenes
• The full length documentary by Zak and Joey (last we heard, titled “Popcorn Porn”
• All of the “Money Shots” promo videos (uncensored, we assume with never before seen episodes that didn’t make the web)
• A blooper reel

The standard DVD set’s running 2 discs, so likely you’ll get the film on one, and the doc on the other. Of course, the Bluray will have everything on one easy place due to the massive storage capacity.

The one massive omission here is an audio commentary track, we believe the first time it’s missing on a View Askew DVD. Kevin states an interest in using SModcast to record such a track that will run along with the film, so watch for it. Lucky Bluray owners should also be able to embed future tracks released automatically into the disc.

We’ll cross our fingers for an early copy so we can hook ya up with all the other secrets and details on what’s sure to be another gem on your DVD shelves next month.

We don’t have any official details on extras yet, but this makes us almost certain that we will indeed see the feature-length documentary from Chop Shop Entertainment on this set, along with (we hope) a commentary track, all the deleted scenes, and more. Frankly, we’ll be totally amazed if they’ve managed to assemble all this stuff, but considering Kevin and Scott’s talent for keeping DVD in mind right from the start, they also make it easier than some other filmmakers.

View Askew has always been the reigning king of special edition DVDs, so we’re betting this release will continue that tradition. Fans still regret that a director’s cut packed disc for “Jersey Girl” never arrived after the small low key release. We think the guys are gonna go full blast for the initial “Porno” arrival in just a few weeks. We expect full specs any day now. And we expect good news.