Well, it looks like RED STATE writer/director Kevin Smith‘s long-gestating endeavor, HIT SOMEBODY, just took on another form. The project, originally meant to be two films, has found a new course with the help of Jay himself, Jason Mewes, who suggested to the cultural icon that he make a mini-series instead. Now, Smith has revealed that that is the exact venue he is pursuing for the project.
“I started restructuring HIT SOMEBODY thusly,” said Smith during his Jay and Silent Bob Get Old podcast #99. “We’ve now drawn in on the close of this and we have a network who wants to do it” Smith does not specify a network, saying the network would like to announce the project themselves, but continues, saying, “Yes, HIT SOMEBODY is going to happen as a mini-series and it looks like we’ll be going into production next year.”
So, there it is. In a way, it makes sense. Smith’s brand of raunchy humor could certainly pass the cable test, minus the F-bombs and occasional nudity, but otherwise HIT SOMEBODY could fit right in with a network like AMC, home to his successful Comic Book Men reality show. If I was a bettin’ man, I’d put it on AMC. The only thing is, and bear with me here, do we really need a hockey mini series?
In all honesty, I thought that the recent Seann William Scott starrer GOON was a lot of fun, but I don’t think I could commit to a mini-series. Smith says that the film takes place over a 30-year span of a fictional character’s hockey career that goes from the 1950’s to the 1970’s, which certainly creates a large amount of material to cover. During the podcast, Smith recounts a story of how he reached out to uber Producer Jerry Bruckheimer with the script, who told Smith it was the best thing he’s ever written. That’s got to be a confidence builder, but unfortunately, Bruckheimer wasn’t as enthusiastic about how to get it made in the current market.
Smith will have to really sell the relevance of a mini-series over a 90-minute film for HIT SOMEBODY, as it begs the question: Is this about a story worth telling or a case of an artist not knowing when to kill his darlings? We’ll see.
More as this develops.