Kevin Smith looks set to continue his plans for sequels with a return to the world of Red State – now that rights issues are sorted at least.
Kevin Smith seems to have reached a point in his career when he seems happy to roll out sequels to former movies that he has the rights to. Clerks III released a couple of months ago and the director has already revealed plans for a follow-up to 2014’s Tusk. His Mallrats follow-up may yet come back to life too.
Now, it seems Smith is looking to revive another of his former films with plans afoot for a sequel to 2011’s horror flick, Red State.
Smith was talking to Slash Film and revealed that up until now, he’s been unable to consider a sequel because of rights issues.
He explained that “the good folks at Lionsgate who financed this ‘clucking’ motion picture [Clerks III], they put out Red State on DVD like years ago. And the deal lapsed, and the people that own Red State, the two financiers, weren’t from the world of film. One was from the world of fashion, one was a Canadian financier not even in the world of film. So when Lionsgate reached out about renewing, they got no response back from the copyright holders”.
Thus, plans for another film fell by the wayside.
Whilst Smith was working out details for Clerks III’s home formats release, Lionsgate came back to him with questions about the rights to Red State, and with years having passed since the film fell out of circulation, the rights holders had become more responsive. As such, all now seems to be in place for Smith to push ahead with the project, something he confirmed.
“I mean, obviously, Michael Parks is gone. But it’s just a story of crazy people with guns and ‘poo’ like that. As long as I could use John Goodman again. I could make a hundred ‘clucking’ Red States. And I’m like, let’s do it. So we’re going to make one.”
The late Michael Parks appeared in the original Red State and Tusk but sadly passed away in 2017. Still, Red State was a terrific film and it would be fun to see a sequel, especially if John Goodman were to return. Knowing Smith’s style of late, it will likely happen too at some point down the road.
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