Kevin Smith‘s Red State is a project that has been known for a while, but has never had any luck in moving forward as a movie. Smith is obviously best known for his work in comedy and he has also done some drama in titles like Chasing Amy and Jersey Girl, but Red State promised to be very dark and not at all easy to sell to a mass audience, making it unappealing to financiers.
For a while it looked as if Red State would never be made; Smith moved on to direct Zack and Miri Make A Porno and most recently, Cop Out. At present time, the director was getting ready for his hockey movie with Sean William Scott, Hit Somebody, but it looks like that will have to wait now. In a message posted on his Twitter account, Kevin Smith has confirmed that Red State finally has that green light it’s been seeking for so long.
At the moment, this looks like this means that Red State will film first, and then Smith will go right to work on Hit Somebody before the vacation he’ll badly need at that point.
No one really knows anything about the movie yet. All that we do know is that it is inspired by Fred Phelps, a pastor known for his despicable hatred of homosexuals and his disgusting beliefs that tragedies like terrorist attacks and natural disasters are simply God punishing societies that support gay lifestyles. His hand was also involved in creating the slogans “God Hates Fags,” “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” and “Priests Rape Boys.” A real delight to have at your pot luck dinner, as you might imagine.
Just looking at the man, if this is indeed “inspired” by his ways, I immediately caught a vision of the life-scarring Reverend Kane from Poltergeist II. And as you can see above, a simple Google search confirmed that I am not the only one seeing this. Thanks to Totally Looks Like for the side-by-side.
Here’s a description of Red State from Kevin Smith:
The movie’s called ‘Red State’ and it’s very much about that subject matter, that point of view and that position taken to the absolute extreme. It’s certainly not Phelps himself but it’s very much inspired by a Phelps figure,” revealed Smith. “And to me, too, the notion of using a Phelps-like character as a villain, as horrifying and scary as that guy can be, there’s even something more insidious than him that lurks out there in as much as a public or a government that allows it and that’s the other thing that I’m trying to examine in a big, big way. It’s weird because for a few months I’ve been saying ‘horror movie’ and technically it is, but it’s also not a very traditional horror movie in the sense that people have been asking me, ‘Is it a slasher movie? Is it like the Japanese horror flicks?’ It’d be much easier to just show it to them when I’m done and be like, ‘This is what I meant.’ At which point I’m sure there’ll be people saying, ‘This ain’t a horror movie!’ But to me, it is.
Details on who’s backing the movie and why things are suddenly “all systems go,” are fairly cryptic at the moment, but Smith has said that he’s “going home.” This could mean that he’s going back to the indie roots that brought him cult success with Clerks in 1994. It could also mean that the studio giving this semi-horror film a chance is The Weinstein Company, who have turned down Red State before, but have a strong past with Smith through Miramax.
[Source: via /Film]
