Silent Bob Speaks

As anyone who’s ever read my bio knows, the movies of Kevin Smith factor strongly into my pop culture experience. Clerks, Chasing Amy, Dogma (yes, even Mallrats) sit proudly in my “top 10” movie list. I find them funny, thoughtful, insightful, and refreshingly willing to challenge the more taboo societal conventions. And Smith is a brilliant writer.

Smith’s most recent movie, Clerks 2, opened on July 21, 2006, in theatres in the U.S. He videoblogged the entire making of the film (“come watch the train wreck!”), and even rolled the names of 10,000 MySpace “friends” of the film during its theatrical credits.

He so totally gets it.

Smith also knows that he appeals to a limited demographic. So, he built the business plan for the film around that understanding. Smith (on July 23rd, near the end of the film’s opening weekend):

“Reuters writes “Kevin Smith’s ‘Clerks II’ was No. 6 with $9.6 million, broadly in line with expectations.”
I’m not gonna try to spin it for you: we’d have liked to have opened better, naturally.

And yet, I’m happy.

Let’s get the business stuff out of the way first…

Once again, in what’s been termed by some box office analysts as the “Star Trek”-Effect, we saw good Friday numbers dip on Saturday. Essentially, the hardest of hardcore fans show up in full-force on opening day, inflating the returns slightly, leaving Saturday to drop rather than enjoy the standard jump most flicks enjoy on the same day. So while it would’ve been nice to have done our best opening weekend ever with “Clerks II” (that 11 million “Strike Back” bar didn’t seem all that high to reach on Friday night), alas, it’s number six for us.

I can’t find anything to complain about; I mean, we nearly doubled our budget in the opening weekend. And while there were marketing costs (prints and advertising) beyond the negative cost ($5mil production budget) , they were pretty modest (indeed, we spent far less opening “Clerks II” than we did to open “Strike Back”). The flick should manage to get to $20 – $25mil theatrically, and eke out a minor theatrical profit, leaving all the DVD loot as total windfall.

In essence, we took the “Strike Back” paradigm, plugged in different, lower numbers, and are seeing pretty much the same results. But since “Strike Back” was a pretty profitable endeavor when all was said and done, “Clerks II” will be even moreso (a twenty million dollar budget vs. the five million dollar budget). Financially, it’ll be a winner for all involved.”

He also nailed the marketing of the film. Smith again:

“We knew we were going after a niche audience and spent accordingly.

That’s why we only spent five million bucks making the flick in the first place.

That’s why we spent 45 weeks throwing up making-of video blogs over at www.clerks2.com.

That’s why I did a fifteen city tour promoting the flick to every local news outlet I could hit.

That’s why Jeff Anderson and Brian O’Halloran did the same, in fifteen other cities.

That’s why Rosario Dawson and I did couch duty, separately, on Leno, Conan, Kimmel, Ferguson, and Regis (yes, Regis).

We maximized what little we had to promote the flick with good ol’ fashioned grass roots marketing: because our marketing budget was well below average.”

Back on July 23, per the quote above, Smith estimated that “the flick should manage to get to $20 – $25mil theatrically.” As of yesterday, Clerks II had grossed 22.3 million in box office revenues. Again, he nailed it.

The moral I see?

• Know what game you’re playing, cold. Don’t self-delude.
• Know your audience and customers. Build a business that serves them.
• And don’t ever, ever pretend to be something you’re not.