Although it is not technically the 25th anniversary of DogmaA company recently torn the rights over the 1999 criminal film sentenced Harvey Weinstein. For the first time in years, the writer and director Kevin Smith himself arrives the film to the public. Friday, May 16, 2025, Smith brought the film to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where most of the shooting took place. During the question and answer session after the screening, Smith told a story about how his late father, Don, presented him at the age of nine to the comedy of George Carlin. Almost two decades later, before a church, Smith made the favor by presenting his father to Carlin when the actor appeared in Dogma. Smith said that Carlin said that when someone laughs, an involuntary reaction, they open a window on their truest self.
Laughing in Carlin’s comedy revealed to Smith this part of his father. So, it is not really a surprise that he devoted his professional life to open this same window for parents and children who love his work, despite how the landscape of entertainment has changed since he struck the independent cinematographic scene three decades ago. In this exclusive interview with CBR, Kevin Smith tells the reward for the experience of the tour Dogma was and opens with the new ways he found to make people laugh, including a suite Dogma And a new film Jay and Silent Bob.
The answers below have been slightly modified for more clarity.
CBR: You said (both appropriately and inappropriate) that revisiting films like Dogma is like a religious experience where you are the priest and Jesus at the same time. Does this also generate new ideas, either for these characters or something else?
Kevin Smith: Oh, my god, yeah. I can look Dogma So – I think we are now in 16 cities on this tour, or maybe it’s 17? Because there is a burbank [showing]Then San Francisco, and Denver tomorrow. So, I have seen it now as 17 times, and I hear the public, what they react, at the most basic level. I write a follow -up of this film. There are so many reminder moments based on the way the public reacts.
So I say to myself: ‘Oh my God. I can bring that [idea] out. Bring this back. SO, [rewatching the movie] is useful, and it also holds me pumped. Because I head for a follow -up. You know that we celebrate its 25th anniversary, but we started to shoot in 1998. So, technically, I was [starting production] About 27 years ago, and I wrote this when I was 23 years old. I wrote it just before Clerk. At the time, it was much longer. His name was’God‘ not Dogma. SO, [the characters and the story have] I have been in my life for over 30 years. To then suddenly revisit the characters when there had never been a plan to do it, never thought of doing it before, it was absolutely an explosion. It’s total fantasy time! And the public can feed [that creativity] every evening.
CBR: As you mentioned, writing a film and doing it are two different difficulties. With the changing entertainment landscape, in particular the way you came at the forefront of the independent film scene in the 1990s, studios and producers do not want to invest. But there is all this technology. What is your opinion on this subject, and what would you say that young filmmakers who may be trying to start a wave of new indie films?
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Kevin Smith: I don’t! If I had any whores of ideas, I would use them for myself. I would not go the next generation if I knew what the code was and how to break it. Fuck no. (Laughs) Everyone tries to understand it. I say to the new generation the same thing that I say to the old generation, which is: “Your voice is your currency. Expend the expend as often as you can. You are unique and it’s precious. They don’t wait to hear the same old story. They are waiting to hear the story you expected to tell all your fucking life.
Like when I enter a room, the studio representatives are like: ‘oh, here is fuck Clerks XI.“They would like to see fresh blood to cross the door and tell them a story that they had never heard before. And it only comes from an original voice. What to do? How to do it? I don’t know. If they have ideas, tell them to leave Me Also know. Because it becomes more and more difficult to finance something. Unless you are a Marvel film.
CBR: Well, it leads to the following question, because you often said that you would never want to run a Marvel film, but …
Kevin Smith: No, but I love them, however. These are my “stories”, as the same way as my grandmother would look at Young people and agities And say “you can’t talk now. My stories are on! I love these Marvel films.
CBR: Certainly, and no one else can make films of “Kevin Smith” either. However, is there a part of you that will savor the challenge of taking up something that is so out of your wheelhouse?
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Kevin Smith: This film, Dogmacame out of my wheelhouse, and I did it 26 years ago. So, for me, at my age? There is really nothing left to prove. I really know that I am not talented enough to make a fucking Marvel film, and it is not because you like a kind of film that you are qualified to make one yourself.
So, I know how to make Kevin Smith films in my damn sleep and I was accused of doing so by criticism. But make a Marvel film? It’s just something that is like it is an anathema for me. It would be like someone asking, “Hey, do you want to go in space?” No, I am. Content to watch people do this.
CBR: Is it enough to continue making Kevin Smith films that you can?
Kevin Smith: Yeah, yeah. My God, the challenge is to remain relevant. I am doing these 31 years now, and culture should have been done with me a long time ago. But I haven’t finished with that, and so I keep, you know, to highlight myself on culture again and again. So it is always this battle for the relevance that you always hopes in a way in your side. But you know that the more you are there, the more tooth you are, and it becomes more and more difficult to find this relevance. So yes, it’s more than anything else, it’s the challenge.
CBR: Have you seen the Superman trailer?
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Kevin Smith: Oh my God. I like him damn, guy. I looked at him so many times. [Writer and director James Gunn was] So smart to supervise it with the number one interview. We all know now that Lois and Clark know each other. It’s not like: “Oh, she does not yet know secret identity.” Number two: I like how the Watch questioning line [Rachel Brosnahan plays] A strong character and a large Lane laws. But [David Corenswet’s] Passion when he explodes and he said, “People were going to die!” If that doesn’t fuck a superman. I don’t know what it is.
CBR: It seems that the film’s arc is the trailer, right? He begins a known quantity, by questioning, then, in the end, the people slow and encourage him.
Kevin Smith: Yes. It’s a bit daring, rather wonderful.
CBR: As a person who loves both this superhero thing and knows James Gunn, do you think that he and DC studios could be a little late at the “Cinematic Universe” party? Especially since it seems that the public and the general discourse moved to people who took this golden age adaptations of comics for acquired now?
Kevin Smith: I think that in terms of the two big ones, your wonder and your DC, you will never have an audience, “Oh, I’m tired.” Look how many times they can fuck Batman in a film, and people continue to come. It’s the same with Superman. What is this philosophy? When the times are good, the public likes Batman and when the times are bad, the public likes Superman? Well, it seems that times could be better. So, it seems that it is Superman’s time at the moment that the moment of this film, although it is not intentional, can work very well for everyone.
Dogma will make its debut exclusively in AMC theaters on June 5, 2025, followed by a press release.
