For a quarter century, director Kevin Smith has tried to resurrect Dogma, his satire about two fallen angels looking to get back into heaven. Recently, his prayers for the 1999 comedy were finally answered.
On Thursday, the movie got a theatrical re-release across 1,500 AMC Theatres screens.
It’s considered a movie that brought one of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s best on-screen collaborations and an A-list comedic ensemble–George Carlin, Chris Rock, Janeane Garofalo and Alan Rickman–not to mention the meme-worthy, winking “Buddy Christ.”
“It’s got legacy to it,” Smith said, “the ‘umbrella film’ for me, the movie that no matter what you do, even if you make s— that people don’t like, they won’t crucify you because you made a movie that they like.”
Though Smith’s career is defined by 1994’s Clerks and 1997’s Chasing Amy, his fourth film, “Dogma,” steeped in irreverence and hilarity centered around his former Catholic faith, is still considered one of his classics. The movie debuted at Cannes fest in 1999, and he returned to the festival last month, when the comedy played in the Classics section.
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The director and writer recounted how the movie was saved by filmmaker-actor Alessandra Williams, who raised money to buy it from Miramax, decades after it was acquired and shelved by disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein. Weinstein sold Smith’s film, along with others, to Williams to help pay for his legal defense.
“The movie is not as fraught with peril as it was back in the day,” Smith said, referring to death threats, protests, and hate mail the movie garnered from Christian extremists who denounced it as mockery of their faith.
“You Jews better take that money you stole from us and start investing in flak jackets,” Smith recited one of the letters from memory. “We’re coming because we’re coming in there with shotgun.”
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