Filmmaker Kevin Smith just did a massive canon-ball into the deep end of the Holy Shit pool. Through his blog silentbobspeaks.com, Smith has asked fans to animate a fight between Darth Vader and Batman. And the deadline is next Friday, March 16th.

Smith stated that he has never been good at drawing, or animation for that matter. “It’s frustrating to be a dreamer who cannot draw. It’s like being a penguin – the bird that cannot fly.” He stated that Steve Stark is his normal go-to guy for stuff like this, but that he is too busy to fulfill Kevin’s dreams. So he has turned to the public to make those dreams come true. Here is the criteria for the video set by Mr. Smith.

When the Dark Knight fights The Dark Side, you call the shots!

- You decide whether it’s in color or black & white!

- You decide whether a Batarang can beat a Light Saber!

- You decide if Batman needs guest stars to give him the edge!

- You decide if Boba Fett should get involved!

- You decide how bloody it gets!

- You decide who wins!

- You decide if they’re wearing pants or not!  

The winner will be chosen by him and will get $500, plus a job offer cartooning for SModCo. Kevin’s cartoon company.

This idea is awesome. But it’s no piece of cake for whoever decides to take on the challenge. I like the idea a lot because it’s a chance to see two of the most iconic and infamous characters in the history of film fight to the death. Like King Kong and Godzilla, but wayyyyy more kick-ass and meaningful to the younger generations. The fight would be nothing short of epic, and any mere mortal nerd like myself would probably die just from watching it. The two original men in black going fist to fist is almost too good to pass up.

For me, $500 is not enough money for such a heavy task. Deciding which one lives and which one dies would be like deciding between two of my own children. I don’t have kids, but I can imagine the impossibility of having to make that choice. I honestly don’t even know if I could watch such a video, although I’m sure I will. The thought of those two characters brawling never even occurred to me until I read Kevin’s post. Whatever happens, someone is going to win $500 and possibly get a pretty sweet job to decide which one deserves death. That’s a choice I’m glad I don’t have to make.

Are You Exited For Some Awesome Animation?

Follow Josh on Twitter: @JWingface

And we’re back! Apologies for the lag in movie coverage from all of us at The Movie Mash, but now that the Holidays have come and gone, it’s back to work. Today we have the first official teaser trailer for Kevin Smith’s upcoming horror film, Red State, and this new teaser trailer should certainly send chills down your spine. After cementing himself as a cult comedy and geek icon over the past two decades, Red State is an extreme departure from Smith’s usual light-hearted affairs, such has Clerks and Chasing Amy. This teaser has immediately catapulted Red State to one of my most-anticipated films of 2011. Check out the trailer after the break.

As alluded to earlier, this is absolutely nothing like we’ve seen from Kevin Smith before. It’s dark, gritty, disturbing and ultimately riveting. It gives off vibes of Rob Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects. I know, right? Anyway, the trailer debuted on Smith’s Smodcast website earlier this week, and is available for your viewing pleasure below.

Wow. Not only does this look nothing Smith has every done before, the unique arrangement of the trailer is something to admire as well. We have no character dialogue or any b-roll sound from the film. Just a voice-over of a man’s creepy religious monologue, set to the background of a montage of desperate people tied up and gagged, gunfire, and presumably some cuts of scenes featuring torture.

We can’t really tell what the story is about from this brief teaser, but the basic story of Red State follows “group of teenage misfits who encounter religious extremists after answering an online ad for a sexual encounter.” The film features an ecclectic cast of acting veterans, including: Melissa Leo, John Goodman, Kevin Pollack and Stephen Root.

What’s great about Red State is that Smith also wrote the script for the film, where he has stated that the idea was inspired by Westboro Baptist Church leader Fred Phelps. There’s nothing better than horror auteurs.

Red State is tenatively set to hit theaters in March 2011.

[Sources: Cinematical, Slashfilm]

What Do You Think? Discuss.

We have some first glances at two movies coming out next year that are on my must-see list, both from Warner Bros. The first is writer-director Kevin Smith’s first major studio-financed movie titled A Couple of Dicks. It teams up the guaranteed hilarious duo of Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan as two cops whose adventures include locating a stolen baseball card, rescuing a woman and dealing with gangsters and their laundered money. The film is only directed by Kevin Smith, not written by (the film is written by the Bro-tandem of Robb and Mark Cullen) but Smith’s signature outrageous comedic-style should be all over this film, especially since it will inevitably be rated R.

If that wasn’t enough to get you to the theater, it was announced just last week that Minnesota-native funny man, Sean William Scott and the O.C.‘s Adam Brody were signed on to join the cast  of A Couple of Dicks, boosting the sarcastic element of the comedy.

The film started filming this week in New York and several set pics have already surfaced. Accidentalsexiness has the first photo featuring Willis and Morgan sitting in a car, see the enhanced pic below:

The second picture from the A Couple of Dicks set is one of the funniest set pics I’ve seen in a while. It comes from ComingSoon and it features Tracy Morgan dressed up in a cell phone costume, riding a tricked-out tricycle, while being chased by a pit bull. This film is starting to look good. Check out the photo below:

The second movie on my most anticipated list is Jonah Hex. Continuing to best utilize the endless amount of comic-book source material at their disposal, WB is bringing the western-action-adventure comic from DC to life. I’ve written posts about this film before, mostly regarding casting. It stars Josh Brolin as Jonah Hex, a scarred bounty hunter during the days of the wild west, who has the daunting task of tracking down an evil vodoo practitioner (played by the brilliant John Malkovich) bent on liberating the South by raising an army of the undead. Pretty epic adventure story. The film also stars Megan Fox, Will Arnett and Michael Shannon. Below is the first set pic of Brolin as the scarred bounty Hunter. Check out the pic below and compare it to how Jonah Hex looks in the comics:

See all the pics of Josh Brolin as Jonah Hex in HD at LaineyGossip.

What Do You Think? Discuss.