We spoke with the legendaryKevin Smithamid the digital release of his new comedyThe 4:30 Movie, a personal project shot inside a New Jersey movie theater he owns, with a young cast playing out a story inspired by Smith’s own youthful travails. Smith has kept busy with other projects of late, such as a thirdJay and SilentBobfilm that heshared more about at this year’s Comic-Conin San Diego.
“We were hoping to [release] it by the end of this year, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to be the end of this year.So it looks like March of next year, which is alright. 2025 is the 30th anniversary ofMallrats. So there’s some nice symmetry there,” Smith recently told MovieWeb aboutJay and Silent Bob: Store Wars. He detailed the plot for us:
“It takes place in their weed store. It’s about competing dispensaries. So Jay and Bob have their weed store, and then somebody opens up a weed store across the street, and it’s about how they spend the whole movie battling with them. It’s likeSpy vs. Spy, very much a feud movie, but it’s, like, legit funny.”
Related:The 4:30 Movie Review: Kevin Smith’s Delightful & Dirty Ode to Movies and Youth
“You know, at the end of the day, as I was writing it, I was like, ‘Oh, I could take outJay and Silent Bob, just name these characters anything, and the movie would still kind of work, you know?” added Smith. “It’s nice that it’s set in that world, and it has connective tissue, but it’s just a good stoner comedy. You know,it took me 30 years, but I think I figured it out, I think I cracked the code on stoner comedy— finally, 30 years into my career.”
A ‘Kinship’ Between Clerks and The 4:30 Movie
The 4:30 Movie
During the summer of 1986, three 16-year-old buddies spend their Saturdays sneaking into movies at the local cineplex. When one of the guys invites the girl of his dreams to see an R-rated film, all hilarity breaks loose as a self-important theatre manager and teenage rivalries interfere with his best-laid plans.
And on the topic of that 30-year career, Smith drew a lovely little connection for us between another classic of his and the making ofThe 4:30 Movie, which takes place in the ’80s. “The seats in the theater are the same seats I sat in when I sawFriday the 13th Part 2,” explained Smith. “I was like, ‘As long as we point a camera in here, we can get away with it being 1986. Like, it could be the era that I went to the movies.’ And suddenly,that fed the narrative and shaped what it was going to be.” He continued:
“Then I reached back to like, ‘Well, what was the most profound thing that happened to you back then?’ I was like, ‘Oh my god, I could tell the story of my first date!’ And so that’s whereThe 4:30 Moviekind of comes from. Not so much, ‘This is a story I need to tell,’ as much as like, ‘We’ve got a movie theater. Let’s make a f***ing movie in it,’ right?'”
Kevin Smith Gets Personal with The 4:30 Movie and Gives Jay & Silent Bob Update
Kevin Smith’s latest film, The 4:30 Movie, is now available on digital platforms, and the filmmaker discusses its personal importance.
“That it winds up being something that people can hold on to like a warm blanket,” added Smith, “that it winds up being so personal, considering it was born so perfunctorily over, like, ‘Well, we got a location. Let’s go forward from there,’ you know, is an absolute pleasure to me. But it kind of makes sense,because that’s howClerkswas born, right?Clerkswas like, ‘Well, I got this convenience store. Let’s make a movie here.’ Same thing withThe 4:30 Movie. So they share that kinship.”
What a throughline that is. From Saban Films,The 4:30 Movieis now available on digital platforms like Google Play and on Apple TV through the link below. The film will be available on Video on Demand, Blu-ray + DVD + Digital, and Amazon-exclusive 4K + Blu-ray + Digital SteelBook on November 5 from Lionsgate.
