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• Kevin Smith’s SModcastle Cinemas pays tribute to the filmmaker’s career.

• Based in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, Smith often hosts events and introduces films.

• BI spoke with Smith at SModcastle about his most personal venture yet.

Entering SModcastle Cinemas, the New Jersey movie theater owned by filmmaker Kevin Smith, is like approaching the altar of a giant shrine to raunchy slacker cinema.

A mural of memorable characters from Smith’s films, such as Elizabeth Banks and Seth Rogen in “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” and Mark Hamill as Cocknocker in “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.” Posters of his films and live podcast events line the hallways leading to the five screens that run throughout the building. At least one of them usually has a Kevin Smith movie playing.

It’s the perfect destination for Gen

Yet, to my surprise, the first customer I see in the lobby of SModcastle on a Friday afternoon is a young boy no older than six with his mother.

When Smith comes in shortly after wearing his usual outfit – upside-down cap, jacket and shorts – he tells me a secret. Yes, SModcastle is a physical space dedicated to the View Askewniverse, a reference to the name of his production company, View Askew. But there are other ways he keeps the lights on.

“Birthday parties are one of our biggest money makers,” he says.

Throughout his thirty-year career, Smith has been called many things, but smart businessman is not one of them. Still, his artistic appeal has helped Smith make himself a viable brand.

Though modest in scope, SModcastle Cinemas is the latest testament to the power of the grassroots push that launched Smith to stardom in the 1990s with “Clerks.”

From filmmaker to podcaster

Smith released his 1994 feature debut, the black-and-white comedy “Clerks,” at the height of the American indie film craze, when films like “Pulp Fiction” and “Hoop Dreams” showed audiences that there was more to see in the movie. theaters outside of what major studios had to offer.

Shot in the actual grocery store where Smith worked, Quick Stop in Leonardo, New Jersey, “Clerks” introduced the world to sensible twenty-something New Jerseyans like Dante Kicks, Randal Graves, Rick Derris and, of course, Jay and Silent Bob.

Thanks to its numerous pop culture references and crude humor, “Clerks” received immediate acclaim, establishing Smith, who also played Silent Bob, as the young “It” filmmaker in the burgeoning indie film scene.

Smith went on to make films such as ‘Mallrats’, ‘Chasing Amy’, ‘Dogma’ and ‘Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back’. While none were as universally acclaimed as “Clerks” — especially the doomed “Jersey Girl” — they built Smith a loyal and enduring fan base.

The films laid the foundation for the most lucrative aspect of the Kevin Smith brand: himself. From a strain of marijuana to SModcast, a podcast he started with his former producer Scott Mosier in 2007 (the “P” in the podcast has been replaced with the first letters of their last names), Smith has honed his public persona for decades. In 2010, this led to Smith finding a venue where he could perform in front of a live audience whenever he wanted: he called it SModcastle.

The first version was in Los Angeles at a 48-seat location on Santa Monica Blvd.

“Scott and I had just gone out for a SModcast tour, and I wanted to be able to do it live whenever I wanted,” says Smith, lying on his chest on the stage of the 230-seat main theater in the current SModcastle venue. location.

Although SModcastle 1.0 in Santa Monica was always sold out when Smith was there, that was the problem: when he wasn’t there, the place was empty.

While the business model was far from perfect, Smith says it was the incubator for what would become the SModcast network of podcasts, which is now the backbone of his brand. Shows like “Hollywood Babble-On” and “Jay & Silent Bob Get Old” emerged during SModcastle 1.0 and have since built a loyal audience and sold out live shows.

Smith eventually closed the Santa Monica SModcastle in 2011. Then in 2021, he heard about an opportunity to rent space in the same building as the Quick Stop where he shot “Clerks.”

“Great, we’ll do it again, and it’s right next to Quick Stop, where we know people come there as a tourist trap. This will be great,” Smith remembers thinking.

But the same problem that befell the LA venue occurred in New Jersey: when Smith wasn’t there, the place was empty.

In 2022, Smith and his business partners (including Ernie O’Donnell, who played Rick Derris in “Clerks”) discovered that the movie theater Smith went to as a child, Atlantic Cinemas in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, was on the rise. For sale.

As a child in the 1980s, Atlantic Cinemas was Smith’s home away from home, where he saw the then-new releases, such as “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Blade Runner,” that would shape his life and work.

“I immediately thought, this makes more sense,” Smith says. “I can make money from every piece of this, I can show whatever I want, and if I own the house, I can make a movie there.”

SModcastle Cinemas is a home for all things Kevin Smith

Located right on 1st Avenue in the Atlantic Highlands, the location has a deep history in the city. Smith tells me that in the early 20th century, the building was the stable for the horse the postman used to deliver mail. In 1921 it became a single-screen picture house with 670 seats. In the 1980s, when Smith was a fixture there, there were two screens. In 1992 it expanded to three screens and in 1999 it became a five-screen multiplex.

For Smith, SModcastle Cinemas is his biggest creation to date. Not only is it a place where he can show his films whenever he wants, but it’s also a top-notch theater where local moviegoers can see everything from “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” to “The Wild Robot” (the birthday party was there for the latter) .

Smith is the first to admit that he doesn’t make any money showing these non-Smith films, but it helps when he’s not in town. And he hopes that if you come, you’ll buy something from the concession stand, which, like any movie theater, is its lifeline.

“I knew we weren’t going to get rich, but it’s simple math. If people here watch a movie, a movie for which we only get a maximum of 50% of the box office receipts, our only hope is that they will buy something.” some damn snacks,” he says. “I don’t care if you sit here all day watching movies and only bought one ticket; as long as you buy snacks, we’re fine. We’re just like the Catholic Church: we can’t be picky anymore let’s everyone through the doors.”

It’s when Smith is at SModcastle that things really take off.

Tickets for screenings where Smith is present or for events that take up all 700 seats on the five screens will incur higher charges, with prices ranging from $25-$60 depending on the event (a regular adult ticket for a regular film costs $11).

Smith also begins every event he attends by auctioning off memorabilia from his films, such as a signed “Mallrats” script or a prop from the set of “Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back” to raise money to keep the theater running. keep. (Some items have sold for as much as $5,000).

The building’s historical significance also allowed SModcastle to become a nonprofit, a move that Smith hopes will allow the theater to qualify for grants and other financial support that will allow him to offer film classes for children and adults.

The night I meet Smith, he’s introducing a screening of his latest film, “The 4:30 Movie,” which uses SModcastle as the film’s setting. The story follows a teenager named Brian (Austin Zajur) as he plans to sneak into the local movie theater with his friends for a day of movie watching, culminating in seeing an R-rated movie with the girl of his dreams.

It’s Smith’s most personal film in years, as he takes a break from the View Askewniverse to tell a story that’s a love letter not only to cinema, but to his own childhood in the movies.

“I’m hanging here behind the counter and there’s a note that Kim, my high school girlfriend, wrote to me, and it says, ‘Dear Kevin, will you take me to see ‘Dirty Dancing’ at the Atlantic Highlands Twins Cinema? ‘ ‘ says Smit. “And it’s from 1987, when ‘Dirty Dancing’ came out. Every time I come to this place I am reminded of that.”

Because “The 4:30 movie” was shot primarily in a theater he owns, Smith did not have to pay expensive location fees. But while the path to profitability may not ultimately be quicker (the film’s financier, Saban Films, has yet to make its money back), the connection between the film and the physical theater is one that Smith hopes will have a lasting impact will have on the profitability of both films. .

“This place was in a fucking movie,” he says. “So the demand to see it will decrease over time, but we have five screens; there’s no reason why this can’t be played on one of the screens every Sunday at 4:30 p.m., even if three people show up show up.”

With a passion project like SModcastle, Smith relies on the power of nostalgia not only for his old films, but also for the ritual of moviegoing itself. In addition to showing his own films, Smith books hard-to-find titles to screen in hopes of making the theater a destination for cinephiles. He also offers his screens to filmmakers who want to buy a showtime, known in the industry as “four-walling,” to screen the films they’ve made.

By the time I leave SModcastle, the birthday party is over and there’s already a line for that evening’s screening.

Smith and I part ways in the lobby, and he goes over to say hello and take selfies with some fans.

It reminds me of something he told me earlier: Yes, it’s always hard for Kevin Smith, but it’s never fun.

“When it’s busy here, you feel really good,” he says, looking around a theater that was so important to him at a young age.

“But it’s always a struggle, and it should be. Because if that wasn’t the case, then you mean I earn money to live.’

Read the original article Business insider