Kevin Smith

Kevin Smith (birthname: Kevin Patrick Smith) shot to indie fame with his cult hit debut, Clerks (1994), which not only launched his DIY career but a whole world that became known as the View Askewniverse, so-called after Smith and his partner Scott Mosier’s production company, View Askew.

Part of a wave of American indie filmmakers including Richard Linklater, whose Slacker (1990) had a profound influence on him, Smith quickly became identified as a complete filmmaker who wrote, edited, directed, and produced—as well as acted (in his goofy persona as Silent Bob).

Smith’s second feature was Mallrats (1995), starring Ben Affleck, Shannen Doherty, Jason Lee, and Claire Forlani. Kevin Smith’s third feature was his most artistically successful, and one of his most robust commercial hits—Chasing Amy (1997), featuring Joey Lauren Adams in a striking lead performance opposite Affleck, Lee, and Jason Mewes, and winning two Independent Spirit Awards, including a Best Screenplay nod for Smith. Chasing Amy solidified the concept of a View Askewniverse, involving a set of returning characters in a set of ever-changing relationships.

The Catholic-raised Smith made his anti-clerical movie—denounced as blasphemous by the Catholic League–with Dogma (1999), a fantasy comedy starring Affleck and Matt Damon, with an all-star cast including Salma Hayek, Linda Fiorentino, Bud Cort, Alan Rickman, and Chris Rock, along with Smith regulars Lee and Mewes.

Smith returned to the world of Clerks—albeit with a much larger budget ($22 million) with Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001), co-starring Smith and Mewes with returning players Affleck, Lee, and Rock and newbies Eliza Dushku, Shannon Elizabeth, Will Ferrell, and Ali Larter.

Making a significant jump out of the View Askewniverse, Kevin Smith’s Jersey Girl (2004) provided Ben Affleck with one of his best, most human comedy roles (though it failed at the box office, with a return exactly matching its budget of $35 million), with Liv Tyler, Raquel Castro, George Carlin, Stephen Root, Jennifer Lopez, and Jason Biggs.

Smith returned to his roots, and a much smaller budget ($5 million), for Clerks II (2006), which—like Clerks—was presented at the Cannes Film Festival and starred Rosario Dawson, Jeff Anderson, Brian O’Halloran, and Mewes, earning a healthy $27 million worldwide.

Intended to cash in on the new style of raunchy comedy mastered by Judd Apatow, Kevin Smith’s Zack, and Miri Make a Porno (2008), with Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Rogen, proved to be the commercial disappointment that ended the relationship between Smith and co-producer Weinstein Company and its co-owner Harvey Weinstein.

Cop Out (2010), starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan, was Smith’s first studio-produced movie (Warners), his first that he didn’t write, and his first apart from View Askew, and proved to be his highest-grossing film at $55 million.

One of Smith’s most independent features was his horror thriller, Red State (2011), with John Goodman, Melissa Leo, Michael Parks, Michael Angarano, and Nicolas Braun. The film was beset with controversy, starting with its Sundance premiere, in which Smith was perceived as reneging on his promise to arrange an auction for distribution rights by declaring that he would self-distribute the movie, all of it leading to claims that Smith’s career was “imploding.”

Kevin Smith’s lowest budget film was a slightly animated feature (barely, at 64 minutes) extending the View Askewniverse, Jay & Silent Bob’s Super Groovy Cartoon Movie (2013), with Mewes, Smith, Eliza Dushku, and Jon Lovitz, which Smith self-distributed in a theater to theater touring roadshow.

Smith partnered with distributor A24 for his next, Tusk (2014), a horror comedy with Justin Long, Michael Parks, and Haley Joel Osment, which was his first widely released film since Cop Out. It was the first entry in a trilogy that Smith titled “True North”; the second was his worst-grossing and most critically panned film of his career, Yoga Hosers (2016), starring Lily-Rose Depp, Harley Quinn Smith (Kevin Smith’s daughter), Vanessa Paradis, Austin Butler, and Johnny Depp.

Once again returning to Jay and Silent Bob’s world and the release pattern of a theatrical roadshow, Smith’s Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (2019), proved to be a modest fan hit, with a cast of regulars as well as returning names like Matt Damon, Joey Lauren Adams, Tommy Chong, Fred Armisen, Val Kilmer, and Molly Shannon. Smith’s first traditionally released View Askewniverse film in a decade was his sequel, Clerks III (2022), reuniting Brian O’Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Mewes, Smith, and Rosario Dawson.

Kevin Smith has stepped in front of the camera since the start of his filmmaking career, mostly in his films in his recurring role of Silent Bob, but also in other filmmakers’ movies; many of these are cameos or those in which Smith plays himself, but some of them are larger roles, including writer-director Bryan Johnson’s Vulgar (2000); writer-director Richard Kelly’s black comedy-drama, Southland Tales (2006); Susannah Grant’s rom-com, Catch and Release (2006); Live Free or Die Hard (2007), with Bruce Willis; and writer-director Noel Clarke’s British crime thriller, 4.3.2.1. (2010), with Emma Roberts, Mandy Patinkin, and Helen McCrory.