In crowing anew over the (qualified) success of Red State, Kevin Smith pretty much admitted that his love of filmmaking is a distant second to his love of talking about filmmaking—or anything, really, as the dude simply loves to talk. Now it seems that Smith’s evolution from internal-monologue-as-dialogue-heavy films to An Evening With… Q&A sessions to SModcasts to compulsive tweeting may have reached its natural apex in a Kevin Smith-hosted talk show, which Smith is said to be developing right now as a pilot.
Following up on Smith’s recent open call for studio audience members for a mysterious taping taking place in L.A. this week, Vulture nabbed an email from the show’s staff that fills in some of the details: Reportedly Smith is aiming for “a Regis And Kelly talk show at the opposite end of the day for the opposite kind of audience—the 12-34 demo,” an age range that is definitely within the Kevin Smith sweet spot. The half-hour show is intended for syndication, potentially as a follow-up to TMZ on local Fox affiliates, and will consist of Smith and his unspecified co-host (Scott Mosier? Jason Mewes? Wayland Flowers’ Madame?) discussing the news and issues of the day before moving on to a celebrity interview and a Daily Show-style field segment.
Of course, while Smith is a natural conversationalist, and he’s made frequent overtures to the idea that he’d like to get paid for just sitting around and running his mouth, it remains to be seen whether he can succeed in a format where everyone from Craig Kilborn to Tony Danza to Tempestt Bledsoe have tried and failed to replicate Oprah or even Sally Jessy Raphael’s success—particularly in an increasingly crowded field of contenders like Anderson Cooper and Katie Couric. Particularly if Katie Couric learns how to tell a dick joke. But hopefully any day now you can expect to read a 1,000-word blog post on why this will totally fucking revolutionize the talk show format, and make your television jizz all over itself and so on.