Kevin Smith Shares Details On His Phone Call With Marvel's Kevin Feige
Kevin Smith's long and winding career has left him with some zany credits in his filmography — and even zanier behind-the-scenes stories.
Back in the day, he shared some of those stories onstage in his "Evening with Kevin Smith" series of DVDs. Since then, the proliferation of podcasts, Smodcasts, movie vlogs and blogs, and social media has made it even easier to hear the unfiltered thoughts of Smith and other filmmakers.
Smith's experience with "Superman Lives" — an unrealized movie that almost starred Nicolas Cage as Superman — is the stuff of Hollywood legend. It famously involved dealing with the demands for giant spiders and other things on the part of producer Jon Peters, who is now a character played by Bradley Cooper in Paul Thomas Anderson's new movie, "Licorice Pizza."
It was Marvel Studios producer, Kevin Feige, who called Smith up to wish him well after he had a heart attack. Smith related the story in a new interview with Uproxx, where he said:
"I was like, 'I almost died, and now they're going to offer me a Marvel movie. I'm going to have to turn this guy down, but this is lovely.' [Feige] called, and he said the loveliest things, man. He goes, 'Look. When I heard about the heart attack,' he's going, 'it really affected me, because, as a kid from New Jersey who made a movie, you meant something to me. Your journey meant something to me. I'm so glad you're alive.' I'm like, 'Thanks, man. That means a lot.' I expected him to be like, 'Okay, so, now, let's get down to business,' but he was like, 'All right, Kev, be good,' and hung up, and that was it."
Don't Expect to See a Kevin Smith-Directed Marvel Movie
Smith is friends with "Last Night in Soho" director Edgar Wright, and he touched on Wright's experience with "Ant-Man." He'd developed the movie for years, but ultimately parted ways with Marvel over creative differences, leaving Peyton Miller to take over as director.
To hear Smith tell it, it doesn't sound like Wright's departure was particularly acrimonious. It just sounds like his auteurist vision didn't happen to align with what Marvel wanted. As for Smith, he doesn't see Feige or Marvel knocking on his door anytime soon to direct one of their movies:
"I think everyone knows what my relationship with the Marvel movies is ... particularly at Marvel. They're like, 'He's a fan, and he will remain a fan, as far as we're concerned.' That's for the best, man. I don't have that kind of vision to pull that stuff off. Look, I'll be honest with you. This is the call that I really want, Kevin Feige calling up and being like, 'Will you be in one of these movies?' That would be far more valuable to me than making one of those movies."
Smith did make an appearance in one Marvel flick: the 2003 Ben Affleck-led "Daredevil." He also penned the "Guardian Devil" comics storyline, but that was before Marvel Studios came along and kickstarted Hollywood's shared-universe craze.
We're now 13 years deep into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the movie rights to "Daredevil" have fallen back into Marvel's hands. So you never know: maybe Smith will pop up in a future revenge cameo whenever Marvel decides to bring Daredevil back to the screen.