Criterion Set To Release Kevin Smith’s Cop Out [Criterion New Releases]

[Note from the Editor - 4/2/10: It would appear that this story is part of some grand scheme to fool the world, on April 1st no less.]

It was announced earlier today through a press release that the Criterion Collection, known for bringing the best, the brightest and under seen films from around the world, had just signed a deal with Kevin Smith to bring a recent film of his to the collection by the end of the year.

Criterion is taking a huge gamble with their newest announcement of Kevin Smith’s controversial film, Cop Out. It all started when the director, known for doing minimalist comedies such as Clerks, Mallrats and Criterion’s own release, Chasing Amy, was offered the directing gig for a script called A Couple of Dicks. Of course he jumped at the shot, saying it reminded him of his homage to Boogie Nights, Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Controversy followed the film from the get go, first when it was announced that Tracy Morgan would be co-starring alongside Bruce Willis and then when the title was being complained about by studio execs, who were reminded of many dirtier films than they wanted to be associated with, such as Clerks II.

Recently more controversy hit Kevin Smith when he was taking a Southwest Airlines flight and was told to leave the plane for being too ‘big’ and that he worried the pilot who was concerned for the safety of the crew and passengers of the flight. Using Twitter, he made a mockery of the airline and made some big news about big people’s rights who like to fly. Also, after his film was panned from various review sites (garnering a low overall score of 19% on Rotten Tomatoes), Kevin Smith fired back at his critics, saying that they should have to pay and instead he’d rather give regular people tickets to see his film for free and have them write reviews. Therefore making them critics and probably being as harsh or even harsher in their opinions. But that is a whole other story.

Why would Criterion pick out such a controversial film for their collection? When asked to comment about the newest pick, CEO Jonathan B. Turell said, “We’ve taken risks before with our releases. Most people were shocked when we re-released Salo on DVD recently. It was hated to the point of death threats to the cast and crew. Kevin Smith has had similar threats made against him for his past films, like Dogma, which we wanted to release but is still owned by Miramax, so that put a damper on things. But when we saw the chance to release Cop Out, we jumped at that chance to bring our legions of fans a film that, upon multiple viewing, might start wonderful conversations between cinephiles everywhere. Who knows? It might turn out to be a completely different film when Kevin sends us his director’s cut.”

A director’s cut of Cop Out is in the works and as a Criterion Collection fan, I can’t wait. I wonder what extras this DVD/Blu-Ray will have. It might have transcripts of Kevin Smith’s Twitter conversations with various fans. Or a photo gallery of Kevin’s airline fiasco. Very exciting stuff this coming year from Criterion and Cop Out is just one more reason why they are the best in the business.