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It's easily one of the biggest cult classic films of all time and Troma Entertainment's The Toxic Avenger has been in the process of being remade for a long time. Producers first got the remake rights back in early 2010, but by the end of that year, director Steve Pink (Hot tub Time Machine) had been hired to write and direct a PG-13 action comedy take on Troma's very R-rated original. Pink wrote the screenplay with Daniel C. Mitchell, their story followed an average teen who joins an environmental club in hopes to impress his crush. Then while investigating a waste plant, he falls into a tub of waste and transforms into a radioactive hero.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was even offered a role in 2013, but it wasn't clear if he would play, and John Travolta was even rumored to be up for a role.

Then last year, it was announced that Pink was out as director,...

The Toxic Avenger is one of the best exploitation films ever produced and is a true 1980s B-movie classic. It effortlessly fused together the superhero and horror genres to create a brilliantly comedic display of violence and gratuity. As such, it was followed by a line of sequels, and talk of a remake has gone on and off for the better part of a decade. In fact, at one point, even Arnold Schwarzenegger was attached.

But plans since then have seemed to fallen apart, leaving the future of the Toxic Avenger franchise uncertain. Now, though, we’re learning more about the failed project. Specifically, that director Kevin Smith was set to helm a remake, before turning down the offer due to budgetary concerns.

According to Smith’s Fatman on Batman podcast, here’s what happened:

“I don’t really deal in that world that much anymore, I don’t have...

Quentin Tarantino admits that he knew about several of the allegations of sexual misconduct against Harvey Weinstein.

In an interview with The New York Times on Thursday, the director, who worked closely with Weinstein for years, revealed that he "knew enough to do more than I did."

"There was more to it than just the normal rumors, the normal gossip. It wasn’t secondhand. I knew he did a couple of these things," he admitted, citing several allegations by well-known actresses. "I wish I had taken responsibility for what I heard. If I had done the work I should have done then, I would have had to not work with him."

Tarantino went on to state that he was aware of the allegations his former girlfriend, Mira Sorvino, told The New Yorker about Weinstein, that the producer had massaged her without asking, chased her around a hotel room and even showed up at her apartment in the middle...

Kevin Smith and Harvey Weinstein’s careers have been linked since the mid-1990s, when Miramax launched the young director’s career by purchasing “Clerks” at Sundance. Kevin Smith owes Weinstein his career, which has made the latter’s sexual harassment scandal all the more personal for Smith. The director explained on his “Hollywood Babble-On” podcast that in light of recent events he will no longer be accepting residuals from the films he made under Weinstein, which includes “Clerks II,” “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” “Jersey Girl,” and “Zack and Miri Make a Porno.”

“My entire career is tied up with the man,” Smith said. “It’s been a weird fucking week. I just wanted to make some fucking movies, that’s it. That’s why I came, that’s why I made ‘Clerks.’ And no fucking movie is worth all this. Like, my entire career, fuck it, take it.

Kevin Smith is hoping to make a difference for female actresses in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal. In the latest episode of his podcast titled Hollywood Babble-On, the actor promised to give any future residual income earned from his Weinstein-made projects to Women in Film. He also expressed his disappointment towards the Hollywood producer who continues to face allegations of sexual harassment. "My entire career is tied up with the man. It's been a weird f--king week. I just wanted to make some f--king movies, that's it," Kevin explained in the episode. "That's why I came, that's why I made Clerks. And no f--king movie is worth all this. Like, my entire career,...

Kevin Smith says he intends to donate all future residuals from his Miramax and The Weinstein Company-produced films to the organization Women in Film, following multiple allegations of sexual misconduct made against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. “My entire career is tied up with the man,” Smith said in the latest episode of his podcast, Hollywood Babble-On. “”It’s been a weird f–ing week. I just wanted to make some f–ing movies, that’s it. That’s why I came, that’s why I made Clerks. And no f–ing movie is worth all this. Like, my entire career,...

As more and more women keep coming forward with their stories of sexual harassment and sexual assault at the hands of Harvey Weinstein, many of the male filmmakers and actors he's worked with over the past few decades have spoken against his actions, including Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and even a brief statement from Quentin Tarantino last week. Today we have word that another filmmaker, Kevin Smith, whose career was launched with Clerks, distributed by Harvey Weinstein's Miramax, is taking it to another level. The filmmaker announced on his Hollywood Babble-On podcast that he will be donating all of the residuals from the movies he made with Harvey Weinstein to a women's charity.

After the original sexual harassment allegations surfaced earlier this month, Kevin Smith released a brief statement on Twitter, stating that Harvey Weinstein financed the first 14 years of his career, and that he "feels ashamed" that "others...

Here’s the latest episode of the Cinema Geeks podcast, part of the ever-growing podcast roster here on Nerdly. If you haven’t heard the show yet, you can check out previous episodes right here, whilst we’ll be featuring each and every new episode as it premieres.

Episode 150: Kevin Smith Retrospective – Clerks

Today on Cinema Geeks we begin another director retrospective. This team our focus is on the career of the infamous Kevin Smith. We go back to where it all began with a review of his first film Clerks. Does it hold up to the test of time? We discuss that and other key issues on this weeks episode.

Mark Harrison Sep 28, 2017

How a 1994 indie hit from Kevin Smith gave birth to an unlikely franchise...

In 1993, Kevin Smith made a movie. Clerks was shot in black and white over the course of three weeks, at night, in the convenience store where Smith worked during the day, on a shoestring budget of $27,575. Smith funded the film himself by dipping into his savings, selling all his comics and maxing out several credit cards.

Even though it became an indie phenomenon when it was picked up by Bob and Harvey Weinstein's Miramax (who gave it a new soundtrack using a post-production budget that was ten times the cost of principal photography) at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival, it doesn't have 'franchise starter' written all over it.

Long considered a Gen X touchstone, Clerks is a funny and filthy slice of life movie, which equates a working day for Dante Hicks (Brian O'Halloran) to his namesake's Inferno.

Jay and Silent Bob are finally returning to the big screen after over a decade hiatus, last appearing in Clerks II in 2006. Jay and Silent Bob are, of course, the dynamic duo created by Kevin Smith, who also plays Silent Bob, appearing in most of his movies since his very first film, Clerks, in 1994. Since Clerks, the pair have popped up in Mallrats, Chasing Amy, and Dogma, culminating an Avengers-type film that brought Smith’s entire View Askewniverse together in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. The pair have been absent this past decade as Smith tried his hand at more serious fare in Jersey Girl, avoided the pair all together in Zack and Miri Make A Porno, did a studio film in Cop Out, tried horror with Red State, and got just downright bizarre with Tusk and Yoga Hosers.

16 years ago, #JayAndSilentBobStrikeBack was released in theaters. And this Fall,...

Clerks actress Lisa Spoonauer died of natural causes at the age of 44, the local coroner’s office tells People.

Best known for playing Caitlin Bree in Kevin Smith’s cult classic, she was battling an undisclosed chronic illness prior to her death at home on Saturday in New Jersey. The nature of her illness remains unclear.

On a fundraising page for Patient Advocate Foundation Inc. created by Spoonauer’s brother Mike in her memory, he wrote, “Our sister Lisa, if she had gotten better, was going to devote the rest of her life to fighting for those with chronic illness...

Actress Lisa Spoonauer, best known for playing Caitlin Bree in director Kevin Smith's 1994 indie classic Clerks, has passed away at 44. No cause of death was revealed, but Kevin Smith took to social media to issue a touching tribute to the actress, who made her feature film debut in Clerks after the director discovered her at a local New Jersey college. Here's the first half of the director's statement below, where he reveals how he cast her in Clerks.

"Devastated to report that #LisaSpoonauer, who played Caitlin in #clerks, has passed away. In 1992, I went looking for Lisa without knowing either who she was or the integral role she'd play in my life. I'd held a night of open auditions at the #firstavenueplayhouse (where we found @briancohalloran and @marilynghigliotti) but the perfect Caitlin Bree never walked through the door. So I popped into an acting class at Brookdale Community College...

Lisa Spoonauer, known for playing Caitlin Bree in Kevin Smith’s cult classic Clerks, has died at the age of 44.

She died at home in New Jersey on Saturday, according to her obituary. Born and raised in the state, Spoonauer appeared in just two films: 1994’s Clerks and 1997’s Bartender. She was briefly married to her Clerks costar Jeff Anderson from 1998-1999, and later went on to become a restaurant manager and event planner.

Spoonauer is survived by her husband, Tom Caron; her daughter, Mia Spoonauer; her stepson, Tyler Caron; her mother, Dolores Spoonauer; her twin brothers, Michael and Mark...

Over the past decade or so, Kevin Smith has had quite the interesting turn in his career. He had his start in the indie world back in the early 1990s with the foul-mouthed micro-budget movie Clerks. The movie went on to get purchased by Miramax, and thus began a career with more twists and turns than an M. Night Shyamalan film. As he made more films, they generally increased in budget bit by bit, and before long, Smith went the traditional Hollywood route with the 2004 movie Jersey Girl, which was an experience that left him a bit unhappy. With that negative experience behind him, he opted to head back to the View Askewniverse with Clerks II.

Smith went on to do many other films and projects, and for a while, it seemed like those characters were done. A couple years back, however, Smith floated the idea that he was working on Clerks III,...

Rob Leane Feb 13, 2017

Superman Lives, The Green Hornet and sadly now Clerks III: here’s a rundown of the Kevin Smith films we’ll probably never see...

Kevin Smith has always had to fight to get his films off the ground: he started his filmmaking career by maxing out multiple credit cards to self-finance Clerks, and more recently, legend has it, it was only Johnny Depp’s decision to come on board as a wacky supporting character that allowed Smith to secure financing for his walrus-centric horror flick Tusk.

Smith has, across his career, been offered several barmy jobs (he rejected a chance to pen Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian back in the 90s) and he’s also signed up for a lot of projects that never got past the script phase.

The latter camp of could’ve-beens is what we’re talking about today, following that news that Clerks III...

Rob Leane Feb 14, 2017

Kevin Smith tells us how he wound up making Yoga Hosers, a movie about miniature Nazis made of sausage...

Among geeky film fans, Kevin Smith needs no introduction. He’s brought us such treats as Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy and Dogma, and recently he’s had a massive resurgence as a giant in the nerdy podcast world.

So far, two movies have come out of Smith’s podcasting: first was Tusk, branching out from a SModcast episode about a Gumtree advert seeking someone willing to dress up as a walrus in exchange for lodgings. Justin Long starred in that one, with Smith’s daughter Harley Quinn Smith featuring in the supporting cast alongside her best friend Lily Rose Depp and her famous father Johnny Depp.

And now we have Yoga Hosers, a spinoff from Tusk in which Smith Jnr and Depp Jnr’s Canadian convenience store clerks...

Jay and Silent Bob are coming back to the big screen! In a very lengthy Instagram post, creator and filmmaker Kevin Smith announced on Thursday that this past January he penned a script for a project he’s deemed the “Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.”

“And so all last month, I had the time of my life laughing while writing ‘Jay and Silent Bob Reboot’ — a fun flick in which the Jersey boys have to go back to Hollywood to stop a brand new reboot of the old ‘Bluntman & Chronic Movie’ they hated so much,” Smith explained in the post. “It’s a tongue-in-cheek, silly-ass satire that pokes fun at the movie business’s recent re-do obsession, featuring an all-star cast of cameos and familiar faces!”

Read More: Kevin Smith and Andy McElfresh Cook Up Gourmet Dishes in ‘Wake & Bake’ – Trailer

Since the early ’90s, Smith’s ever-enduring characters have...

Tony Sokol Feb 10, 2017

Kevin Smith gives an update on Clerks III and Mallrats 2 - and reveals that his next film is a Jay & Silent Bob reunion...

“This is not a drill,” Kevin Smith is going to reimagine Jay and Silent Bob in a new movie.

“My next flick will star @JayMewes and is entitled Jay And Silent Bob Reboot,” Smith wrote to Twitter.

Director Smith, of course, plays Silent Bob, one half of a dope-dealing duo that hung outside the comic book shop in his 1994 movie debut Clerks. As befitting his name, Silent Bob doesn’t have much to say, he leaves that to Jay, played by Jason Mewes. The pair reunited for Mallrats (1995), Chasing Amy (1997), Dogma (1999), and Clerks II (2006) in cameo roles before taking revenge with their own movie, Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back from 2001.

Smith wrote to his Instagram account that his planned Clerks III got sidetracked...

In between the likes of Yoga Hosers and his directorial input on DC’s small-screen universe through The Flash and, soon, Supergirl, writer-director Kevin Smith has spent the past few months developing a TV spinoff based on cult MGM classic, The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension.

All of that progress has come screeching to a halt, however, with Deadline reporting that Kevin Smith has abruptly pulled out of the gestating Buckaroo Banzai TV show. Smith later posted a frank 18-minute Facebook video to explain his reasoning, which can be traced to the federal lawsuit filed by MGM against the original creator Earl Mac Rauch and W.D. Richter, the director of the 1984 flick, over complicated rights issues.

Originally set for a 2017 premiere by Amazon Studios, there’s no word of an official statement from the studio at the time of writing, though the mere fact that Smith is...

When the mysterious Canadian Nazi Andronicus Arcane (Ralph Garman) reveals the stomach-churning creature he has stitched together from the bodies of his murder victims during the dramatic climax of “Yoga Hosers,” he orders the monster to murder all “haters and critics.” With that in mind, this critic will proceed with caution.

Read More: ‘Yoga Hosers’ Exclusive Clip: Kevin Smith’s Latest Horror-Comedy Will Have a One-Night Only Film Event Nationwide

“Honestly, ‘Yoga Hosers’ is the movie I wanted to see back when I was a 12 year old girl,” director Kevin Smith told audiences before a recent screening of the feature. Similarly, he opined, “’Clerks’ was just a desperate act of somebody who wanted to see the movie ‘Clerks.’” Making movies for Kevin Smith is what Kevin Smith does best, and for many years it worked. Early critical successes “Clerks” and “Chasing Amy” captured the folly of youth from Smith...

On July 15, 1996, IndieWire launched as an e-mail newsletter providing “the daily news service for independent film.” (See the first newsletter here.) The original iteration of the site was the brainchild of Cheri Barner, Eugene Hernandez and Mark Rabinowitz, three recent college students obsessed with the movies. In the ensuing years, IndieWire grew and changed hands many times over. Barner now works as a talent manager in Los Angeles, Hernandez is the deputy director of the Film Society Lincoln Center, and Rabinowitz is a freelance publicist, consultant and programmer.

But they have remained a part of our close-knit community. As IndieWire arrives at its 20th anniversary, the trio gathered together for their first joint interview to recall the early days of IndieWire — as well as the thriving American independent film scene that inspired the publication.

Eugene Hernandez: IndieWire was an outgrowth of something that Mark, Cheri and I had started in 1995. At the time,...

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We spoke to actor and frequent Kevin Smith collaborator Jason Mewes about his new movies Bling, Yoga Hosers, MallBrats and Clerks III…

Clerks is one of the movies that made me love movies, and so it was with more pre-interview nerves than usual that I waited on hold to connect with Jay actor Jason Mewes via a crackly international phone-line.

We were due to talk about the animated movie Bling - in which Mewes voices a robot monkey called Kit, who shirks his responsibilities as a theme park employee to help the main character (voiced by Taylor Kitsch) take down a super villain and propose to his girlfriend – but the memory of all the nights I’ve spent chuckling away to Jay and Silent Bob’s antics had put some serious fear into me.

I needn’t have worried, because Mewes proved to be a lovely chap to chat with,...

Way back in June 2014, just a few months after production started on Star Wars: The Force Awakens, we got one of the first reports directly from the set from a somewhat surprising source: filmmaker Kevin Smith. The filmmaker recounted his set visit during one of his many podcasts, and while he didn't divulge too many specific details, he did reveal that the Millennium Falcon would return. Now that Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a massive hit, LucasFilm is starting the pull the curtain back from this secretive production even more, with StarWars.com revealing a list of the "additional voices" used in the film, one of which was Kevin Smith.

The scene where Kevin Smith's voice is used is during the First Order attack on Maz Kanata's (Lupita Nyong'o) castle. The filmmaker/actor voices a Stormtrooper, who, when reacting to incoming Resistance fighters, says "We have incoming at 28.6! Move!

The phrase "Curiosity killed the cat" exists for a reason and Charlotte might just have to learn that lesson the hard way in Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes. Also in this round-up: a trailer for the film Synchronicity as well as development details on Mab Studios' Witchula.

Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes: From Amazon: "Based on the bestselling horror video game series, Five Nights at Freddy’s.

It’s been exactly ten years since the murders at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, and Charlotte (Charlie for short) has spent those ten years trying to forget. Her father was the owner of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza and the creator of its four adult-sized animatronic animals, and now Charlie is returning to her hometown to reunite with her childhood friends on the anniversary of the tragedy that ripped their town apart.

Curiosity leads Charlie and her friends back to the old pizza place,...

In this excerpt from the Guardian film show, Xan Brooks, Henry Barnes and Catherine Shoard activate sleeper agent thriller / stoner comedy American Ultra. Starring Jesse Eisenberg as a small town shop assistant with latent kick-ass fighting skills, the film’s an unholy hybrid of the Bourne franchise and Kevin Smith’s Clerks. American Ultra, which also stars Kristen Stewart and Topher Grace, is released in the UK on Friday 4 September

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You may know that director Kevin Smith's first film Clerks spawned the Clerks animated TV series in 2000, although it only ran for one season. What you may not know is that, five years earlier, the indie hit was actually adapted for a live action TV pilot, starring Jim Breuer as Randall Graves and Andrew Lowery as Dante Hicks. The pilot was never picked up as a TV series, and now you can see why, since the full Clerks pilot has now surfaced online.

The pilot also features a few more faces you may recognize. Keri Russell, three years before starring on Felicity, plays Sandra, a tanning salon employee, with Rick Gomez, best known as Ada David Vasquez from FX's Justified, playing an ice cream parlor worker named Todd. Screenwriter Andr&#233 Nemec, who went on to write the fourth Mission: Impossible movie, Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,...

Twenty-one years ago, Kevin Smith splashed onto the indie movie scene (and Hollywood at large) with his first feature, “Clerks.” A genuine labor of love, the filmmaker wrote, directed, produced, edited, and co-starred in the picture, which went on to garner awards at both Sundance and Cannes; win overwhelming critical acclaim; launch Smith’s career, and spawn a sequel (with a third in the works), cartoon, and a failed 1995 live action television pilot. What’s that? You’ve never heard of “Clerks” the TV series? As Av Club reports, such a thing almost came to be. Now, before you wonder how such a potentially groundbreaking show died before leaving the gate, I should tell you that Smith was not involved in any way. Because of his absence, Jay and Silent Bob are noticeably absent (Jay was repurposed by producers as Ray); more so, though, due to his lack of participation,...

We learned back in March that Kevin Smith had decided to revisit the world of his secondView Askewniverse film, Mallrats, along with heading back for a third helping of the original, Clerks. Smith today confirmed via social media that he’s completed at least the first draft of the Mallrats sequel, and that it’s currently called MallBrats. 20 years in the making. 113 pages fulla old friends, new jokes and a bloody battle w/ @therealstanlee! This is for you, Jim. Wish you were here... #MallBratsA photo posted by Kevin Smith (@thatkevinsmith) on May 11, 2015 at 7:31am PDTMallrats was Smith’s much-maligned (though, according to its loyal fans, vastly underappreciated) Clerks follow-up that attempted to transplant the blend of slacker vibe, pop cultural commentary and sheer madness to a mall with a bigger budget, a bolstered cast (including one Ben Affleck) and colour.Now the sequel is coming together and Smith has...

When it came to naming the sequel to Clerks., Kevin Smith ultimately took the easy path and simply decided to call it Clerks II. As such, when it was revealed that Smith was working on a sequel to Mallrats, there was a very strong possibility that the final title would simply be Mallrats 2. Evidently that won't be the case, as the filmmaker has just revealed that the name of the upcoming follow-up will instead be Mallbrats. As he has been known to do, Kevin Smith made the announcement through his multiple social media accounts - but he didn't simply write "Mallrats 2 will be Mallbrats!" Instead, he posted what amounts to our first look at the script, and a message about what we can expect from the film. Check out his Facebook post below: (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.

Kevin Smith has been firming up the cast for Mallrats 2, the sequel to the second feature film he directed after Clerks. A slew of actors have joined the ranks of the long-talked-about project, and now it looks like things are moving faster than we anticipated. In the latest installment of his Hollywood Babble-On podcast, Smith stated that Mallrats 2 is the film he.s focusing on next, which means we.ll have to wait even longer for Clerks 3.  ComicBook.com transcribed the podcast, in which Smith said scheduling concerns forced his hand. As he described, he needed a "big, old, empty mall" that he wanted to blow up. This, apparently, actually happens in the third act of the film. He found a mall that would allow him to pull this idea off, but "in order to get to that mall before it goes away," plans had to change. Smith was...

Since the digital revolution, it has become increasingly easy to make low-budget films in the mold of, for a particularly salient example, Kevin Smith’s Clerks.

All filmmakers need now are a few friends, the right know-how (and often suprisingly little of that) and some inspiration.

The inspiration in the case of Christopher Downie’s Shooting Clerks is exactly what you think it is. Here’s a first trailer for the film, which offers a fictionalised account of the production of Smith’s debut feature.

Clerks has provoked many young filmmakers, I’m sure. This is just an exceedingly literal example of that.

Smith himself is credited as ‘the narrator,’ which implies endorsement. That doesn’t necessarily mean we’re in for a sycophantic hagiography, of course.

Anyway, maybe there’s nothing much controversial to report about the making of Clerks anyway. I’m certainly not familiar enough with the...

A few years back, Kevin Smith said he was retiring. That changed when a spark ignited new passion in the filmmaker; now we’re getting movie after movie from Smith. He first had that inspiration in the early ’90s when he raised $27,000 to make a little black and white movie called Clerks. Now, over twenty years later, that incredible story is […]

The post ‘Shooting Clerks’ Teaser Trailer: The Kevin Smith Biopic Is Coming Soon appeared first on /Film.

Kevin Smith is headed back to the mall. The director confirmed to radio show Rock102 Mornings with Shmony & Carolina that's he currently working on a sequel to his 1995 hit Mallrats. "Yeah, that's what we're working on," Smith said in response to rumors of the sequel. "It's half a script right now, and we're pulling our loot together. We've got up until the beginning of 2016. By the time we get to May 2016, we’re going to be shooting." Smith is currently working on a third Clerks film, as well as a hockey comedy called Hit Somebody and a horror film entitled Moose Jaws.

There’s a good chance you don’t know who Jim Breuer is. He’s Brian, the perpetually high fellow in Half Baked; but most people probably know Breuer for his recurring SNL character, Goat Boy. His IMDb page also tells me he voiced Randal on the short-lived animated version of “Clerks.” If you are a fan of “that guy” actors, Mr. Breuer is surrounded by that mysterious aura, and this stand-up special is a good way to get acquainted with him.

Clocking in at a breezy 71 minutes, Jim Breuer: Let’s Clear The Air is the kind of comedy special Eddie Murphy might have made, had he been far less vulgar and had his career not gone in a downward trajectory once he had kid. Well Breuer has his own litter and his family takes front and center in much of the stand-up. But first, a word on the DVD menus,...