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No offense to Kevin Smith, but he’s never going to get the nod to direct a Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbuster, not that he’d even want to. The filmmaker has been incredibly vocal about how little he enjoyed his sole director-for-hire experience on dire buddy comedy Cop Out a decade ago, describing the process of working with Bruce Willis as true darkness.
He does have plenty of previous in the genre from both an on and off-camera perspective, though, having made cameos in Ben Affleck’s Daredevil, animated movies Superman: Doomsday and Teen Titans: The Judas Contract, while he’s also directed episodes of the Arrowverse’s Supergirl and The Flash, lent his vocal talents to the Audible adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman and wrote several comic books for Marvel and DC.
In a new interview with UPROXX, Smith revealed the two times he’d personally spoken to Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, before admitting the one way he’d love to get himself involved in the franchise.
“I mean, yeah, but let’s be honest, they’re not knocking. Kevin Feige’s called me twice in my life, and never once to be like, ‘Come work with us’. One was after the heart attack, and they were like, ‘Call from Kevin Feige’, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, man. He called, and he said the loveliest things, man. He goes, ‘Look. When I heard about the heart attack’, he’s going, ‘it really affected me, because, as a kid from New Jersey who made a movie, you meant something to me. Your journey meant something to me. I’m so glad you’re alive’. I’m like, ‘Thanks, man. That means a lot.’
Then, he called me one other time to tell me about the Stan Lee cameo in Captain Marvel. Even then, that time, I was like, ‘I think he’s about to ask me to be in Captain Marvel and co-cameo with Stan’. He was like, ‘No, we’re just looking for Stan’s voice’. Look, I’ll be honest with you. This is the call that I really want, Kevin Feige calling up and being like, ‘Will you be in one of these movies?’. That would be far more valuable to me than making one of those movies.”
As someone who built their entire career and reputation in the world of low budget independent cinema, Smith does share a lot of similarities with numerous filmmakers to have made the jump to the MCU like Jon Watts, James Gunn, Destin Daniel Cretton, Chloé Zhao and more, but the difference is that he’s got over a quarter of a century in the industry and fifteen features under his belt.
At least he’s made peace with the fact Marvel aren’t desperate to work with him, even if he’s still waiting on the call for that cameo.