Shame on you - but Clerks, Mall Rats et al are widely available. The story of Clerks is a truly inspiring one - a guy with fewer resources than the typical teen reading this post who somehow combined a scrappy job with scraps of film reel to cut the dialogue heavy Clerks...shot where he worked.
And giving birth to Jay and Silent Bob. Smoothie boochies.
Smith has gone on to establish the cult success of his View Askew universe/company label, briefly dabble with Hollywood millions, quit film-making, resume low-budget film-making, have a heart attack, drop more weight than some of you weigh, and bring his uber-positive post-attack outlook to a reboot of his underground franchise. As heavily documented on Facebook. Smith ain't no kid anymore - his kid is grown up too.
The Facebook log of his promotion around the movie continues. The screen count is very similar to This is England and Tyrannosaur, peaking at just 17. SEVENTEEN. And yet Forbes business magazine, in an excellent column well worth following (as good as the Guardian's box office columns but US-centred), did a feature on the movie's theatrical run. WTH, eh?
Smith has multiple strings to his bow, including his comic books and extensive merch line. I've paid for an autographed poster or two myself. Then there's the phenomenon of his podcast series, recorded live in front of adoring, paying audiences, and his separate An Evening With... shows. That's on my bucket list.
Smith has toured with the tiny handful of prints, often doing a director Q&A at $47 a ticket. No movie has racked up more weeks of $60k+ screen averages. Smith has long been sneered at by elitist critics dying to salivate over the next 'difficult' therefore worthy movie to cross their mighty crania, seen as a cheap, crass pop culture stoner. Well, the slimmed-down post-heart attack stoner Smith strikes back with this underground, slow churn success, with marketing heavily centred on his well-followed social media.
See https://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbean/2020/03/07/jay-and-silent-bob-reboot-shattered-box-office-records-and-nobody-noticed/
And at some point - when you're old enough - don't just watch Clerks but also a feature on how it was made.
Then look up my other posts on other micro-budget films, some with very limited theatrical releases - including one Harry Potter scion who took a £10k inheritance and cut a movie, each of its few screenings either linked to the Curzon Cinemas membership scheme (regular director Q&As as a benefit) or film festival appearances - I asked him a few questions myself at the Ilkley Film Festival.
If you happen to be working on a coursework evaluation question about how your opus might be distributed ... add Smith's astonishing underground success to case studies like those mentioned above and the awesome tale of how Coz Greenop spun a ricked back and consequent months laid out in a caravan in Scotland to a movie debut via Cannes meetings set up by social DMs (messages - he didn't stick a fashionable boot in).
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