Yesterday I did the press day for Dukes of Hazzard (an utterly dismal film, by the way), and Seann William Scott came into the room with his head shaved for his role in Richard Kelly’s next film, Southland Tales. I never had a chance to ask him about it, though, as Scott launched into a lengthy story about getting stuck in South Central on his way to his first audition, which ate up all the time we had with him. I mean, it’s a funny story, but that’s Letterman material.
Anyway, Kelly’s film is what they call ambitious, and part of that is six 100-page prequel comics. Back when The Matrix was doing all this extra-curricular tie-in stuff I was for it, but after seeing the failure of that series and not really being as interested in the tie-in junk as I thought I would be, I have come to despise the idea. I want to walk into a movie theater and have all the information I need presented to me.
The press release which talks about these graphic novels, which will begin hitting stands in 2006 and will be released by Darko Entertainment, Graphitti Designs and View Askew, has a great line where it says the movie is set in the "futuristic" world of Los Angeles in 2008. I love that.
Anyway, the name of Kevin Smith’s character has also been announced, and it’s Simon Theory. He’s a legless Iraqi War vet – I wonder if Kelly will look into the far distant "futuristic" 2008 and tell us if that war yet rages.
Look, I don’t want to slag Kelly too much, even though I think his director’s cut of Donnie Darko ruins the quirky original. Hell, I almost went to a party at his suite in San Diego (almost is my way of saying it got too late and I pussied out), so I don’t dislike the man. I just happen to be really wary of a second feature as insanely ambitious as this one. And of a feature that sounds this willfully weird in general. I hope my skepticism is crushed when this comes out in 2006, just before the "futuristic" landscape of LA 2008 is upon us.