Kevin Smith Gets Permission to Shoot His Next Film – THE 4:30 MOVIE – During Strike and He Shares Story Details

Kevin Smith has been preparing to shoot his next film project titled The 4:30 Movie, and he got permission to shoot the film during the actors’ strike. Smith applied for a waiver and he was approved due to the fact the film is an independent production and the script was completed.

Austin Zajur (Clerks III, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark) takes on the lead role, and the story centers on a group of teens in the 1980s, who pay to get into one movie, and spend the day theater-hopping.

I love this story! I did this! When I was a young teen in the ‘90s I used to theater hop with my friends all the time! I remember spending a few Saturdays at the theaters jumping from theater to theater. Those were some fun days. I’m excited to see how this film turns out!

When talking about the project during a script reading for Superman Lives, the filmmaker said:

"Even though the writers are striking, my script was written, so we were getting ready to go into production. Last week, we were supposed to be in production. But then SAG struck, the Screen Actors Guild. And you can make a movie without a writer, if you've got a script already, which we did. You can't make a movie without actors. So that kind of killed our plans for the summer to shoot a movie, unless we could qualify for a waiver.

“Since the movie was never goin to be an AMPTP movie -- that's who the strike is against -- that gave us a chance to apply to SAG and get a waiver. We were already a low-budget movie; it's only $3 million. Our movie is not a threat to SAG or WGA. It doesn't set back the cause. So SAG gave out 39 waivers already to productions that were three days away from wrapping, one week away from wrapping, or something like that. Low-budget productions that were not AMPTP-related productions.

“So we applied for a waiver and we were really hoping to get one so that we could maybe shoot the movie this summer, instead of waiting until the strike ends....Here's something I found out last night: we got our waiver. So that means by the end of August, we're going to start shooting a movie right here.

“It's a movie that's set in 1986 and it's set at this movie theater right here, and it's kind of about me, and [Clerks star Ernie O'Donnell) and our friend Michael Belicose, and what we used to do with our free times when we were kids. We would go to the movies at a multiplex like this, pay for one movie, and then hop from movie to movie all day long and see free movies."

What are your thoughts on Smith’s next film? Did you ever theater hop when you were growing up?

Via: CB