Director of film and builder of podcast empires Kevin Smith has been talking about his retirement as a movie man for quite a while now. The plan, until very recently, has been for him to go out with a film called Hit Somebody, an epic in scope hockey movie that follows a sports career from its beginning in the ’50s all the way through to its end in the ’80s. What wasn’t quite clear was exactly what form Hit Somebody was going to take. At first it was thought to be one film, then it got confirmed that it was going to be split into two films, and then, just a couple days ago, Smith confirmed on Episode 99 of his ‘Jay & Silent Bob Get Old’ podcast [via /Film] that it’s now going to be split into six hour-long episodes of a mini-series, to be aired on a yet to be named TV channel. That’s not the end of the story though. Apparently Smith still wants to make one big final film that he can market as his retirement project, and earlier today he took to his Twitter account to fill everybody in on what that would be. He started things off by explaining to his followers that, “Since HIT SOMEBODY is now gonna be a mini-series, yes – that leaves room for a new final flick before I retire from directing feature films.” And then followed that up by dropping the fairly big bombshell that, “ … the

Rumors that Hit Somebody – Kevin Smith‘s forthcoming final film about a young man named Buddy making his way up through the ranks to play pro hockey – would be two movies have been floating around, so we decided to go to the source himself for confirmation and a few questions over the old email machine. As for the rumors, we can confirm that they’re true, and Smith had a brief plot outline of where the split would be, saying, “It’ll be one flick cleft in twain. Looking like part one ends at the close of Buddy’s first pro game, 1972-ish. Flick starts in 1954. Part 2 ends in 1980.” No matter how many movies it’ll be, this project is definitely his last. To that end, I asked why he didn’t want to make a trilogy, and he responded, “Everybody does trilogies. I’d rather end with a less predictable closer. Predictable would be Clerks III, but a two-part hockey epic that’s largely about Canada, featuring an all-star cast? That’ll have some scratching their heads and others saying ‘It’s kinda perfect.’”

We reported earlier in the day that Miramax was partnering with The Weinstein Company to create a slew of sequels from the movies that it already owns. It beats original ideas, that’s for sure. Now, director Kevin Smith has commented on the development with a level head: “If someone was going to exploit the library for sequels, remakes, TV, I’d rather it be the devil I know. Nice to know there’s a home for Clerks III if I ever wanted to make it, but hope it doesn’t become a home for a Clerks-anything if I’m not involved. Either way, I doubt my shit is even something they wanna re-do/remake. [Miramax owns] Clerks, Chasing Amy, Jersey Girl and Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back. But then it’s further complicated by the Jay & Silent Bob of it all. They don’t own Jay & Silent Bob; I do. They own Strike Back, but they can’t make any flick that’d include Jay & Silent Bob (even a Strike Back sequel) without my permission/license.” He then went on to give the best possible synopsis for a Jersey Girl sequel that could ever exist: