'Jay And Silent Bob Reboot' Panel Got Meta As Kevin Smith Presented Clips [Comic-Con 2019]
It wouldn't be Comic-Con without a panel from filmmaker, television director, comic writer, and pop culture influencer Kevin Smith. However, this year didn't just have the Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy and Dogma director gabbing away and telling showbiz stories.
At Comic-Con, the Kevin Smith Reboots Hall H panel debuted some clips for the filmmaker's forthcoming comedy Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, a sequel/reboot of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Plus, he also debuted a scene from the film showcasing the movie within the movie: Bluntman v Chronic, clearly taking a cue from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Find out what we learned from the Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Comic-Con panel presentation below.
Smith has been holding a regular Hall H Q&A session for years. In the past, the sessions have been a casual affair, with the filmmaker taking questions and talking about whatever comes to mind. This year, however, was a little bit different: Smith, his daughter and actor Harley Quinn Smith, longtime pal Jason Mewes, as well as Supergirl's Melissa Benoist came out on stage to answer questions about Smith's new movie. "Usually I just come here to promote s***, and now I have something of my own!" Smith told the crowd after acknowledging the difficulty of going on after the Marvel panel, where a maelstrom of announcements almost broke Hall H. After paying homage to Marvel, however, Smith went on to show the trailer as well as two never-publicly-shown clips from his upcoming movie, which he says is not only a spoof on reboots, but a film full of meta jokes and a more personal tale of what it's like to become a father.
Meta Joke Number 1: “Jay’s daughter is my daughter!”
"At first, I said I wanted to let me see if I can do a reboot while doing the same movie again, and we did for like a draft. But then it changed because Jason is a father and has been for four years, he has a 4-year-old daughter...and that started to inform the movie."Smith then built off the many social media comments he's gotten over the years joking that his daughter Harley Quinn looks like Mewes. "The movie is one meta joke after another, after another," Smith said. "And one of the meta jokes to me was like, oh s***, what if I took the audience joke and just been like, 'Yeah you're right, that's funny.' You know, work smarter not harder!" The crowd then saw the previously-released trailer, which revealed that Harley Quinn Smith plays Jay's unknown-about daughter who joins Jay and Silent Bob in heading to Chronic Con (which has a logo very similar to a certain Comic-Con) to stop the reboot of Bluntman v Chronic. At the end of the trailer, there was also an extended scene with Brodie Bruce (Jason Lee) setting up Jay and Silent Bob on their journey to stop the reboot. Bruce was still his old self, and went through a long diatribe about Hollywood (but not the Marvel movies, the Marvel movies are precious to him!), and the crowd — full of Jay and Silent Bob fans — were along for the ride.
Meta Joke Number 2: We’re At Comic-Con in Hall H Watching A Spoof of Comic-Con’s Hall H
"Enjoy this weird Black Mirror version of tonight," Smith said as he introduced the next clip, which had Jay and Silent Bob sitting in a Hall H-like audience huffing about the promotion of the Bluntman v. Chronic reboot. The clip then got extra meta by showing a clip of that movie-within-the-movie, with Val Kilmer playing a Bluntman who furiously communicates via emojis and Melissa Benoist playing a female Chronic. The scene was funny, and fans of Smith's previous work will be well served by Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. Smith was excited too, and a little bit relieved. "I got to be honest with you, man," he said after the last clip. "That was the first time we've shown anything, and my asshole clenched just a little f***ing bit. But once you started laughing I was like, 'All right, we did all right.'" The fans cheered in agreement, and the rest of the panel was dedicated to a Q&A, where Smith shared the story about how Ben Affleck came ended up making a last-minute cameo and how personally touched he was that other celebrities like Chris Hemsworth made the effort to appear in the film as well.Jay and Silent Bob Reboot is one last hurrah for what Kevin Smith has coined as the View Askewniverse, a series of interconnected stories that predated the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film brings back a ton of Kevin Smith's created characters from Clerks through Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and he even brought in some names from films outside of the View Askewniverse, such as Tusk, Red State, and Yoga Hosers, as well as some recognizable faces from Supergirl, The Flash and much more. It's bound to be a wild comedy ride.Jay and Silent Bob Reboot will be released in select cities on October 15, 2019.