Kevin Smith Wants To HIT SOMEBODY... Twice
Script for his hockey dramedy has become so epic he wants to split the proposed movie, ambitiously, into two parts.
Kevin Smith is continuing to tour his horror movie Red State with an inexcusable $50 a ticket price tag (as screenings of the film come with a compulsory Q & A!) and the latest city to enjoy his low-budget indie was Montreal over the weekend where he spoke a little about his next project, the hockey drama Hit Somebody. The long-gestating dramedy is Smith's love letter to Canada and hockey and is inspired by a same titled Warren Zevon song. The story take place between the 1950s and 1980s and follows Buddy McCracken, a hockey player who wasnt blessed with the talent to be in the NHL on merit but is really good at beating people up on the ice, and is selected as the teams goon. Smith is touting this as essentially a story about his career in film and seems serious about it being his final motion picture or 'pictures' as it should now be refered to as the news is Smith wants Hit Somebody to go the Kill Bill route of a Parts 1 & 2. The first part would cover Buddy's upbringing in Canada and the second would begin right about the time he turned professional and considering in our last write up he said he was already 110 pages in (about the length of a normal movie) and was only half finished, then we can't say we are too surprised that he is at this stage thinking two films. Highly, highly, highly ambitious plans and one we can't help but feel will be just a pipe dream for a writer/director who seems so adamant that he wants this to be his final say on film and because of that his script has become too epic and out of control. I mean he hasn't even secured financing for one film just yet, let alone two, but he does have a agreements with a number of actors already in place, though hardly a star among them; Nicholas Braun as Buddy McCracken, the lead role; 
Kyle Gallner as a Wayne Gretsky esque character; John Goodman would play Blue Jay Jennings, Buddy's first coach. 
Michael Parks would play another coach; 
Melissa Leo has a role, probably as the kids mother; 
Tough, tough sell for Smith... I don't know many studio execs that right now are in the market right now for a two film hockey drama epic OR is even in the business of funding Kevin Smith projects right now. Presumably if financing can be snagged this one will go in front of camera's next year. But I imagine every studio note will be - 'make it one movie... and then we'll read it".