Director/Writer Kevin Smith behind the scenes of the Romantic Comedy, ‘The 4:30 Movie’, a Saban Films release. Photo courtesy of Ralph Bavaro.
Available on digital beginning October 1st is ‘The 4:30 Movie,’ directed by Kevin Smith, and starring Austin Zajur, Nicholas Cirillo, Reed Northrup, Siena Agudong, Jason Lee, Kate Micucci, Justin Long, Genesis Rodriguez, and Ken Jeong.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking over Zoom with ‘Clerks‘ and ‘Chasing Amy‘ writer and director Kevin Smith about his new film “The 4:30 Movie,” a semi-autobiographical, warmly nostalgic look at a teen romance that blossoms in the seats of a local movie theater in the summer of 1986.
Related Article: Movie Review: ‘The 4:30 Movie’
Director/Writer Kevin Smith behind the scenes of the Romantic Comedy, ‘The 4:30 Movie’, a Saban Films release. Photo courtesy of Ralph Bavaro.
Moviefone: To begin with, how are you feeling about the response to the movie so far?
Kevin Smith: So good, man, no complaints. It’s a nice byproduct when people like the movie. Never the aim but never not the aim. It’s never like, “I want to make something people hate.” But it’s nice when you make something and people are like, “Yeah, good on you.”
(L to R) Reed Northrup, Nicholas Cirillo and Austin Zajur in director Kevin Smith’s ‘The 4:30 Movie’. Photo: Saban Films.
Moviefone: Are the events of this film sort of ripped right from the pages of the Kevin Smith biography?
Kevin Smith: Yeah. I mean, look, the events of every movie I’ve ever made are pretty much ripped from the pages of the Kevin Smith biography with the exception of ‘Dogma.’ Even parts of that are pretty autobiographical. I’m not a very inventive storyteller or filmmaker. I crib from real life all the time, and this movie is absolutely no exception. The first scene [in which the teen lead calls the Chinese restaurant where his crush works], that long phone conversation, that literally happened and that’s almost verbatim the things that I said in terms of making a big order and then saying “Six and a half almond cookies and your hand in marriage.” Stuff like that came right out of real life. There are moments where Brian David, our main character, is riding around talking into his tape recorder — I lifted that from recordings of me doing the exact same thing. I cribbed liberally from my real life to make this flick. But to be fair, I do that with all the flicks.
(L to R) Reed Northrup as Belly, Austin Zajur as Brian David and Nicholas Cirillo as Burny in the Romantic Comedy, ‘The 4:30 Movie’, a Saban Films release. Photo courtesy of Ralph Bavaro.
Moviefone: You filmed this in the theater that was your local cineplex as a kid — which you ended up buying and turning into Smodcastle Cinemas. Was the theater in danger of closing before you jumped in?
Kevin Smith: In fact, the other day was the two-year anniversary of us taking over officially and it becoming Smodcastle Cinemas. This was a movie theater I grew up going to in my childhood. My father would take me there, I’d go there with my family, I’d go there with my friends on the weekend. It’s in the neighboring town, Atlantic Highlands [New Jersey], right next to where I grew up. Post-COVID, like many movie theaters, they fell on pretty hard times. There are multiplexes all around us with better seating and bigger, better quality but this was our local community theater. Me and my friends got together and bought it to keep it going. It’s over 100 years old so we were like “Let’s try it for another 100.” But when we bought it, one of the first things I realized is I got a free set. I can make a whole-ass movie here. This is a location for heaven’s sakes. Naturally being the guy who made ‘Clerks,’ it’s like “Do I make a movie about what it’s like to work in a movie theater?” I never did that myself so that would be like pretending or stolen valor. So I was like “You know what I can do? Tell a story about all the times that I hopped theaters as a kid.” Our parents would drop us off for the matinee and then come pick us up at 10:00 at night, and only give us two bucks to go to the movies, man. You pay for one movie and then you snuck into another and then you snuck into another and you kept going. So I figured with this location I can tell that story. There’s something cheeky about making a movie in a movie theater about movies and stuff. It’s not so much cheeky as affectionate. Obviously, movies have been a big part of my life. So much so they shaped my adulthood. Where I saw them, where I ingested those movies, that gets the shout-out this time around. I’ve been shouting out movies my whole life and it’s time to shout out where I saw those movies. At the same time, it could be a free commercial for Smodcastle Cinemas — two birds, one stone, or two birds, one seed as my kid said.
Ken Jeong as Manager Mike in the Romantic Comedy, ‘The 4:30 Movie’, a Saban Films release. Photo courtesy of Ralph Bavaro.
Moviefone: Finally, is it your policy as the owner now to look the other way if people sneak in and out of the auditoriums?
Kevin Smith: 100%. In the end credits of ‘4:30 Movie’ I tell people, “Smodcastle Cinemas, go visit. Pay for one movie, hop around, go see as many movies you want. If you get caught tell Ernie I said it was okay.” As a film exhibitor I know how tough it is to get asses in seats, man. We had ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ open a couple of weeks ago, I asked Smodcastle keeper Ernie O’Donnell, the guy that runs the place, “How’d we do with ‘Beetlejuice’?” He goes, “Friday we had 50 tickets, Saturday we had 100.” That’s the whole day. That’s good for a brand-new movie for us. Really the stuff that tends to do well at our theaters is retro screenings. So like “Hey man, I’m going to show ‘Tusk’ and Justin Long’s here. Hey, we’re going to show ‘Mallrats’ and Jason Lee’s here.” I could sell out those screenings and stuff. But when it comes to just selling real movies on the daily they’ll prefer to go to other movie theaters that have the better seating and s**t like that. So anything to get people to head to our theater is a good thing. Hopefully, them going, “What, there was a movie shot here?” is just one more reason for them to come visit. This is a temple that taught me my craft. The thing that I would eventually spend my life doing, my vocation, was born by sitting in those seats. I sat in those seats with people that I dearly love, some of whom are not even around anymore, like my father. Keeping it alive, man. It started as like, “Hey, I’m a filmmaker, this makes sense having a movie theater.” Quentin [Tarantino]‘s got one. It’s a little harder to run a movie theater in suburban New Jersey in terms of getting talent to come out. When you’re in Hollywood people just live here. But I’ve been able to bring Hollywood to the theater over the course of the last two years. No more so than when we brought cameras in and started rolling. Now for the rest of my life, or as long as we own that movie theater, I’ll always be able to play ‘The 4:30 Movie’ there on a Sunday at 4:30 from now until the end of time. It’ll never stay in other movie theaters. Maybe they’ll do retro or rep house screenings of it one day. But in our theater it will always live. Very rarely does a movie theater get to be like, “The whole movie was shot here.” We’ll showcase that forever.
What is the plot of ‘The 4:30 Movie’?
Three teenage friends (Austin Zajur, Nicholas Cirillo and Reed Northrup) map out an afternoon outing to the local cineplex in the summer of 1986, but their plans to sneak into a new R-rated movie could be disrupted by the irritating theater owner and a host of other characters — not to mention one of the boys bringing his dream girl to the cinema as well.
Who is in the cast of ‘The 4:30 Movie’?
- Austin Zajur as Brian David
- Nicholas Cirillo as Burny
- Reed Northrup as Belly
- Siena Agudong as Melody Barnegat
- Justin Long as Stank
- Jason Lee as Brian’s dad
- Kate Micucci as Melody’s mom
- Genesis Rodriguez as Usher
- Ken Jeong as Manager Mike
(L to R) Siena Agudong as Melody Barnegat and Austin Zajur as Brian David in the Romantic Comedy, ‘The 4:30 Movie’, a Saban Films release. Photo courtesy of Ralph Bavaro.