Back in 1999, Kevin Smith joined the protests against his own film, Dogma

It’s always tricky to make a movie about religion without angering anyone, even if the film is intended as reverent and respectful. Note the scene in the recent Hail, Caesar! during which a beleaguered Josh Brolin tactfully consults an interfaith panel about the pious biblical epic his studio is making. When a proudly irreverent filmmaker like New Jersey’s Kevin Smith makes a movie about religion, complete with a profanity-heavy script and plenty of jokes about sex and drugs, controversy is bound to ensue. That’s what happened in 1999, when the writer-director unleashed Dogma, his satirical tale of two fallen angels (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) trying to scam their way back into Heaven via an obscure doctrinal loophole. The movie attracted the ire of the Catholic League, who labeled it blasphemous, and inspired protests and even a few scattered death threats. Smith, apparently amused that anyone was taking his comedy so seriously, decided to join one underwhelming demonstration outside a theater in his own home state. Luckily, local cable channel News 12 New Jersey (“Around New Jersey. Around the clock.”) was there to cover the whole thing. A clip of this broadcast recently resurfaced on YouTube.