My Boring-Ass Life (Revised Edition): The Uncomfortably Candid Diary of Kevin Smith (53 page)

Fuck, did the flick turn out well...

Fletch F. Fletch

Wednesday 21 December 2005 @ 2:45 p.m.

From time to time, I’m asked “Why doesn’t Chevy Chase like you?” It’s a question usually prompted by someone seeing an interview with Chase, like the one with James Kanowitz (aka Laker Jim) found at
www.fletchwon.net
.

Laker Jim: After Kevin Smith’s
Jersey Girl
(NOTE: and now
Green Hornet
) he is going to do
Fletch Won
(the first Fletch novel) which will be the story of a young Fletch and his first big case. He’s recently said
“He [Chevy] was excellent. I mean Chevy is a comedy god. I want to work in Chevy Chase. Which would require a framing device where he’s telling the story. So we’d start with him and segue to Jason Lee. But that’s if he’s willing to do it.”
Without agreeing to anything, would you at least consider it? Fletch fans everywhere want you to be a part of this.

Chevy Chase: For the record, Smith invited me to lunch about five or six years ago to talk to me about doing another Fletch movie: with me obviously, playing Fletch. He was ebullient about it; about working with me; and said he was writing it as we spoke. After that lunch, he never took or returned a call from me. After two years, I was called by Alan Greisman, producer of the Fletch films, saying, “Kevin doesn’t want to do it.” PERIOD! So I waited for three friggin’ years to hear from someone else that Mr Kevin Smith was, for all practical purposes, lying to me to begin with — having written nothing — rudely deceiving me, and all with no apparent concern for how easily (facile) one can hurt another human being and his family... he can shove it up his hole. If this is the type of director he aspires to being (the type of person I’ve seen a million times in Hollywood), I hope he gets the karma he’s owed. As for me, he owes me one hell of an explanation. (But, with some, when you’re “hot” the rest of the world owes you).

If I played any part in the Fletch remake, think about it: as soon as I appeared on the screen people would say, “Hey... There’s Fletch, man!” Silly idea. Keep me out of it. Fletch is me.

In the interest of fairness, here’s my side of that story...

Chevy Chase: For the record, Smith invited me to lunch about five or six years ago to talk to me about doing another Fletch movie: with me, obviously, playing Fletch.

True. Here’s how it happened...

Mid-’97, after the success of
Amy
, Universal asked me to come in and discuss working there again. I met with Stacy Snider and told her the only thing Universal would have that I might be interested in would be
Fletch
. She said she didn’t realize they even had the rights still. I told her I’d like to do an original script called
Son of Fletch
, which was to star Chevy as Fletch, Joey Adams as his daughter (the titular
Son of
), and Jason Lee as her boyfriend, with a cameo by Goldie Hawn as Joey’s mom/Fletch’s one-time love (I was a big fan of the Chevy/Goldie starrers
Foul Play
and
Seems Like Old Times
). Stacy said yes, and sent me over to meet Brian Grazer, who she wanted as a producer on the flick.

So I head over to Imagine, meet Grazer, and tell him about my idea for the Chevy-starring flick. He says “Chevy Chase? Why him?” I remind him that Chevy has played Fletch twice already. Brian points out that Chevy hasn’t had an audience in years, and he’s legendarily hard to work with. Still, I back Chevy. Brian relents, and suggests I meet with Chevy. So a few days later, I go to Jerry’s Famous Deli on Beverly with one of my all-time heroes, Chevy Chase.

Chevy: He was ebullient about it; about working with me;

True.

Chevy: and said he was writing it as we spoke.

Not true. I told him the ideas I had for
Son of Fletch
, but not that I’d started writing it.

Chevy: After that lunch, he never took or returned a call from me.

I haven’t spoken to him since that lunch, yes. Here’s why...

At the lunch, Chevy went on to claim he invented every funny thing that ever happened in the history of not just comedy, but also the known world. I made
the mistake of telling him my favorite moment in
Fletch Lives
— when Fletch enters the faith healer’s service.

“What’s your name?”

“Fletch.”

“Full name?”

“Fletch F. Fletch.”

“What’s your address?”

“Seven.”

The “Seven” line was what I focused on, and he then offered, rather enthusiastically, that he wrote that — that he says that kind of thing all the time. The waitress was bringing us the charge receipt at that point, and he said to her “Ask me what my credit card number is.” She obliged, and he said “Seven.” Then turned to me, smiling widely, with a Krusty-like “Funny? Right? Funny?” expression.

You ever sat down with somebody who claimed responsibility for stuff he did AND didn’t do? It’s really off-putting.

But, whatever. When the lunch (mercifully) ended, we exchanged numbers, and I was off. I told him I’d call him when I had some pages to read.

Over the course of the next few months, Joey and I broke up, my grandmother died, and I learned Jason Mewes was a heroin addict. Naturally, Jason became my priority. So he moved in with me and we started the methadone/twelve inch Greedo dolls program (that’s a whole different story), which pretty much took up the entire day — leaving little writing time.

Six months later, we were off to Pittsburgh to make
Dogma
. During two months of rehearsal and pre-production, I didn’t write any scripts, and just concentrated on making
Dogma
.

By the end of production (two more months), I still hadn’t written anything. Phil, my agent, called me while I was on set doing the third act church-front finale and says “Universal and Grazer wanna know where the
Fletch
script is and when it’s coming?” I told him I hadn’t written anything yet. He asked if I was gonna start after we wrapped
Dogma
and I told him I was immediately going into edit mode after
Dogma
wrapped. Phil suggested, rather than let this go on any further and anger Universal to the point of never being able to work there in the future, I let
Fletch
go for the time being, because I wasn’t gonna get to it for at least a year. I thought it over, and then agreed. Phil then told Universal and Grazer that
Son of Fletch
was a no-go for now.

It’d been almost a year since my initial meeting with Universal. During that time, I hadn’t spoken to Chevy again — certainly not because I was “Hollywood”. more because I was in the midst of making a very un-”.ollywood” movie.

Chevy: After two years, I was called by Alan Greisman, producer of the Fletch films, saying, “Kevin doesn’t want to do it.” PERIOD!

Alan Greisman was a producer on the first two
Fletch
flicks. He was gonna be taking third chair on
Son of Fletch
behind Grazer and Mosier. I guess Alan was called about the no-go after Grazer.

However, it wasn’t two years since my Chevy meeting. It hadn’t yet been a year, really.

Chevy: So I waited for three friggin’ years to hear from someone else that Mr Kevin Smith was, for all practical purposes, lying to me to begin with — having written nothing — rudely deceiving me, and all with no apparent concern for how easily (facile) one can hurt another human being and his family...

Look, I’m sorry the flick didn’t happen. However, I wasn’t lying to the guy. I
did
want to make that flick. But I was dedicated to
Dogma
, and I had to make a choice. I chose
Dogma
. I didn’t “rudely deceive” the
inventor of all things comedic since the start of time;
I wanted to make a movie and it didn’t pan out. That meeting certainly didn’t prevent him from taking other jobs if they were available. It’s not like I said to the man “Do absolutely nothing until this flick happens! NOTHING!”

I mean, shit — at least my heart was in the right place. I was pulling for the guy when both Universal and Imagine were like
“That
guy? Are you
sure
?”

Chevy: he can shove it up his hole.

Because of all the many hours of entertainment Chevy Chase has given me over the years, I’ll give it a shot and “shove it up” my “hole.” Hold on.

********

Nope. Didn’t fit.

Chevy: If this is the type of director he aspires to being (the type of person I’ve seen a million times in Hollywood), I hope he gets the karma he’s owed.

Here was the karma in question: back in 2000, I got a fax on my desk from a David List — the book agent for Gregory McDonald. He was letting me know that the entire Fletch library (with the exception of the two that feature Flynn) was up for grabs, as Universal let the option lapse. I called him and we spoke about it for ten minutes, after which I called Harvey and filled him in on the details. He asked me if I wanted to make a Fletch film from one of the books in the library. I told him I’d love to make
Fletch Won
— the origin story, and the best book in the bunch. Harvey was like “So Chevy wouldn’t have to play Fletch?” I said no, the role would require a younger Fletch — like Jason Lee. He said “We’ll
get into it with List now.” Less than five hours later, the deal was struck. While I was sitting in on a test screening of
Bounce
, Harvey leaned forward and whispered “Congrats. We’re in the Fletch business.” It was the fastest deal made in Miramax history, according to Harvey and the Miramax legal team.

Six years later,
that
Fletch film has never come to pass, either. I spent all that time trying to convince Harvey and David List that Jason Lee
was
the young Irwin Fletcher. I adapted the book into first a 170-page draft (which Fletch author Gregory McDonald had called the best adaptation of his work he’d ever seen), and subsequently, a more manageable 125 page draft, pulling for Lee all the way, and constantly being shot down. During that time, I’ve worked on the
Clerks
cartoon and wrote and shot
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
,
Jersey Girl
and
Clerks II
... and still, I was told “Lee’s not big enough to play the lead.”

Then, when
My Name is Earl
made Jason Lee a household name, I went back for one last shot at getting a Lee-led
Fletch Won
made... at which point, I was told “He’s too old now.”

*sigh*

So, Chevy? If I there was any karmic debt to be paid, I guess I’ve paid it — because I never got to make a Fletch flick at all, with or without you.

Chevy: As for me, he owes me one hell of an explanation. (But, with some, when you’re “hot” the rest of the world owes you).

Like I’ve ever been “hot”...

But I owe that guy nothing. A few years after things went south on
Son of Fletch
, I read a story about the fifteen-year anniversary of
Fletch
in the NY Post. Chevy’s all over the story, naturally, and he took the same “Hollywood” pot-shots at me. At that point, I kinda lost all interest in Chevy Chase.

Chevy: If I played any part in the Fletch remake, think about it: as soon as I appeared on the screen people would say, “Hey... There’s Fletch, man!” Silly idea. Keep me out of it. Fletch is me.

Well, apparently, not anymore. If Harvey has his way, Fletch is Zach Braff.

But I’ll never have as much enmity in my heart for Chevy Chase as he seemingly has for me. Aside from
Foul Play
,
Seems Like Old Times
,
Caddyshack
, the first
National Lampoon’s Vacation
, and
Fletch
, Chevy was in one of the most influential four minutes of media of my teenage years: the music video for Paul Simon’s ‘You Can Call Me Al’.

I was still in high school when that video was in heavy rotation, and man, did I take a verbal beating by folks for liking that song (or
any
Paul Simon, for that matter). Then, I’d show folks the video for ‘You Can Call Me Al’...

And I’d
still
take a verbal beating. Didn’t matter, though — I thought that clip was pure genius (so much so that I cribbed the idea for the Soul Asylum ‘Can’t Even Tell’ video I directed for
Clerks
years later).

Here’s how nuts I was for that video: I tried desperately to buy an off-white suit jacket for months. And I recall, one specific shopping trip with my parents to a Mervyn’s in Shrewsbury, when my Mom was looking for dress pants for me. I always hated clothes shopping with a passion — when you’re a fat kid, it’s never as simple as going to the Gap and grabbing a pair of cords or something. So while wandering the aisles, dreading having to try on multiple pairs of slacks, I stumbled across an off-white suit jacket. Excitedly, I tried it on, and while it was a little snug, I didn’t care — I was gonna convince my Mom to buy it.

So I track her and my Dad down, and insist this jacket must be bought. My mom’s like “A white suit jacket? That goes with nothing. And you can’t wear it after labor day.” To which I countered “I’d wear this all the time, I promise.” Then, she looked at the price tag.

I think the jacket in question was between $50 and $75 — a pretty sizeable amount of loot to our one-income, $30,000 a year family. My mother’s eyes bugged and she said “Did you see how much this cost?! You can get a whole suit for that!” Certainly, one could, indeed, get a polyester suit at K-Mart for $75 in those days (maybe still; I don’t know — I don’t buy suits), but I didn’t want a whole suit; I just wanted this jacket. And sensing I was losing ground in the fight for the off-white jacket, I pleaded “If you buy it, I’ll pay you back for it, with my bussing tips this month! Please?!?” My Mom was starting to get suspicious, and hit me with “Why do you want this so badly anyway?”

That’s when my old man stepped in.

My father was a man of few words. He never really spoke unless he had some sort of
coup de grace
to deliver — either comedically or as a conversation closer. My sister, in recent years, has suggested that, in many ways, Dad was my model for Silent Bob — a theory I disagree with, but can still see the relevancy of the correlation between. Regardless, point being, when pop spoke, folks tended to listen.