Kevin Smith’s ‘Hit Somebody’ Set to Span Two Films

Kevin Smith has been telling everyone who will listen that his newest film, Hit Somebody, will be his last. Whether that turns out to be true or not remains to be seen – but we’ve learned that the hockey dramedy is “too big” to tell in a single feature, so now Smith is working on plans to release it in two parts, a la Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Smith, who’s currently in Canada showing off his horror film Red State, broke the news during a post-screening Q&A session. The story spread thanks to a /Film reader, and then was basically confirmed by Smith on his Twitter feed.

The film is based on a Warren Zevon song about a hockey tough guy who just wants to score one goal before he finishes his career. Nicholas Braun will play Buddy, the lead character, and the split in the films will reportedly occur when Buddy makes it to the NHL. The first film will chronicle the early part of the character’s life, while the second will cover his professional career. Apparently, Smith flirted with the idea of taking the early life stuff and turning it into a television series, but has now decided to go the two-feature route instead.

The real question is, how will Smith pull this off? The director essentially bowed out of the Hollywood studio system when he took Red State out on the road personally. That move, which many decried as insanity when it was announced, has panned out well for the director. It seemed likely that Smith would at least try the same approach with Hit Somebody, but at last month’s San Diego Comic Con he was telling attendees that the film was too big for that kind of release plan to work. Will breaking it into two films make it more manageable for Smith and crew to release it on their own or does adding a second feature make it even bigger? If it’s the latter, will studios really be interested in releasing a two-part film about a hockey player? We can only guess at the answers to those questions – but we know one thing for sure: the army of Kevin Smith fans out there will turn out for this movie even if Smith broke it up into sixteen installments.