Another comedy that is sure to make a mark in 2008 is Kevin Smith's Zack And Miri Make a Porno. Smith became a generational icon for his DIY classic Clerks and the subsequent films featuring the drug dealing cult icons Jay and Silent Bob. At first it was charming that Smith exclusively wrote films that existed the same New Jersey universe and his endless stream of in-jokes felt quite fresh and exciting. However, by the time he reached the fifth film in his series, the repetition started to become tiring and an anti-Smith backlash began to set in.
Smith himself began to realize the limitations of what he was doing and tried to break out of his mold with the Bennifer-starring disaster Jersey Girl. After the failure of that project he openly returned to the well with Clerks 2. While that potentially masturbatory project showed surprising growth and maturity for the filmmaker, it was a trick that even Smith himself admitted would be difficult to repeat. It was time to move on to something new, and that something became Zack And Miri Make A Porno.
Leaving behind his established characters, Smith decided to write a role for then up-and-coming comedian Seth Rogen, only to see the actor skyrocket to superstardom after Knocked Up before he had a chance to send Rogen a script. Fortunately Seth ended up being a Kevin Smith fan and agreed to star in the Zack And Miri Make A Porno, a comedy about two platonic friends who are so desperate for cash that they decide to—you guessed it—make a porno. While Seth's slacker-stoner comic persona seemed like a perfect match for Kevin Smith’s brand of comedy, there was no way to be sure until footage from the film was released. Fortunately this little beauty snuck onto the internet today:
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