7/08/2014

Kevin Smith Address 'Batman v Superman' Rumors; Reveals First 'Tusk' Poster

By View Comments

With all of the projects Kevin Smith has percolating right now, like his body-horror Tusk, Clerks 3, and Christmas movie The Anti-Claus, there probably isn't enough time in the day for him to do much else. That's why it was a little surprising when a whopper of a rumor emerged last week that claimed he had been hired by Warner Bros. to draft a phony Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice script. Why? To throw the Internet off the scent, of course, and even if it wasn't true it still sorta worked. Film bloggers were scrambling around questioning every story they had ever written it, which was kind of funny to be perfectly honest. But we hadn't heard anything from Smith on the legitimacy of those rumors until today, and he took the opportunity to pump up his legit projects.

Over on his Silent Bob Speaks blog, Smith talked about his busy schedule before shooting down the idea he'd been hired to write a faux Batman v Superman screenplay, poking fun at himself in the process, naturally....

"However, none of those has been a fake BATS v SUPES script. C’mon, kids… No major studio would let a guy like me near their franchises – even if it was for a dummy script meant solely to fool the news sites. (Don’t know if it’s true or not, but this Twitter user is claiming credit for a fugazi script that’s currently being reviewed online.)"

"No, anything I’ve said about “Milo and Sage” was based on an image Zack showed me while hosting a MAN OF STEEL online event at Yahoo many months back. The little I know of the flick beyond that I learned from some cats involved (though never BatFleck himself; as I’ve said a few times now on the Babble-On podcast, beyond email, I haven’t spoken to Ben in years). Fun story, though."

And he's right about that Twitter user, Arrogant Alien (only 26 followers? Come on, dude.), who says it was his fake script everyone is going nuts over. He even has a couple of photos of the draft, not that it proves anything. Maybe it's Justin Bieber? He's been known to hold up fake screenplays as evidence of his role in superhero movies.

Smith did reveal one true thing, though, and that's the first poster for Tusk. The film stars Justin Long, Michael Parks, Haley Joel Osment, Genesis Rodriguez, and just a dash of Johnny Depp in the oddball story of a landlord who forces his roommate to wear a walrus outfit. It's a pretty clever image, one that evokes the titular tusks and hints at the story's creepier elements. The first trailer for Tusk will be shown at Comic-Con before being made available online.

Lastly, Smith says Clerks 3 will still happen despite the Weinsteins passing on the opportunity to finance it...