Sundance 2011: Kevin Smith’s Red State Auction Live From the Eccles With Video

Update:Video Added! Watch the event below…

Also Checkout ScreenCrave’s Red State Review, and news regarding the distribution of the movie by Kevin Smith himself!***

Holy Hell!  We just finished the screening of Kevin Smith’s Red State, and was that a shocker!  Now, immediately following the premier, he’s holding a public auction inside the sold out 1,200 seat Eccles Theater in Park City.  While rumors abounded that the film had been sold well beforehand and that this was all a publicity stunt, Smith insists otherwise, and the auction will begin any moment now, live before we, lucky enough to get into the premier of his new film.  To find out who won the rights to distribute the flick, check out the rest of the story after the jump…

UPDATE:  Okay, we’re out of the theater now, and I’m going to touch this up a little bit so it’s more coherent.  But the big story of the night…and maybe the festival…can be found at the end of the live blog, after the jump…

AUCTION LIVE BLOG:

8:28 – Kevin Comes out holding a Wayne Gretzky Stanley game winning hockey stick for good luck.  He’s changed his life philosophy to adapt to that of Gretzky’s…”Go where the puck is going to be, not where it is.”

8:30 – “Seventeen years ago, I took my shot here with clerks….and the last movie I made was Cop Out, so you know I had to come back here fucking quick…”

8:31 – “This is the first independent movie I’ve made since clerks, where we didn’t have a studio behind it…it cost us $4 million to make…we’re thinking, maybe Harvey will say, ‘here’s $6 million, lemme get back to the fucking Jets game!’”

8:35 – “If say, Lions gate, buys the movie for $6 million, they’re going to have to spend $20 million advertising it, so now the movie has to make $26 million to make a profit…and I never wanted to get into the movie BUSINESS.  I’m a fat masturbating stoner!”

8:38 – “Harvey always said to me, when he looked at other studios movies, when they would open well, Harvey would go ‘fuck…they just keep buying it…anyone can buy the opening weekend of a movie…he was a genius…and we named our company ‘The Harvey Boys,’ after him.”

8:40 – “I look at the film world today, and think ‘I never would have even fucking tried in this world now!’”

8:41 – Kev is explaining that he’s built his own audience through his development of the Smodcast network, and explaining exactly how many people he can reach just by himself.

8:42 – Producer John Gordon joins him on stage to conduct the auction…here we go.

8:43 – Kevin Smith bought his own movie for $20!  that was quick!  They are going to release the picture themselves under the Smodcast Pictures Banner.  It will be officially released October 19th, on the 17th anniversary of Clerks “We’re staring over.  It’s not just about making the movie, it’s about releasing the movie.  True independence is not about handing your work over to some jackass.”

8:45 – “We’ll be taking it on the road, the way Gone with the Wind style.  We’ll be kicking off the Red State tour, beginning March 5th, at Radio City Music Hall.  March 6th, Wilbur, March 8th, Harris In Chicago, March 11th, Indianapolis, March 12th in Kansas City….”  He’s moving too quickly for me to list all the tour dates.  We’ll transcribe our tapes immediately following the

8:47 – “All it takes is a little creativity and ingenuity…and I am happy to take this flick from place to place…until we release it on October 19th…When it opens, we’re not going to spend to open it.  We’re not going to be doing TV spots or advertisements.”

8:50 – “I’m sorry to all the distributors in the room…well I’m not that sorry, because it’s a film festival.  come see a fucking movie.”

8:51 – “You don’t need a fucking studio to release a movie, you need an exhibitor!”

8:52 – “Indy film isn’t dead, it’s being reborn.  We’ve proved that anyone can make a movie, now we need to release anyone can RELEASE a movie…”

8:53 – “This is my second to last movie.  I’m going to make one more movie, and then I’m done making my movies, and we’re gonna make yours.  Smodcast Pictures is going to release your movies without you having to spend a fucking dime.”

THIS IS AMAZING NEWS!  I hope the hype this film built leading up to Sundance explodes out of it, and builds stronger and stronger to prove that this guy can create a new model and get rid of the industry standard that discourages and prevents so many filmmakers from even starting to make their own movies for fear that it will never see the light of day anyway.  We’ll be doing a followup post to discuss the implications of this.

Video:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 5

Part 6

Thanks for following this story, and have a great night!

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