Kevin Smith reveals dark DC Comic pitch rejected by Warner Bros.

Filmmaker Kevin Smith details a pitch he made for a DC Comic property that Warner Bros. turned down for being too dark.

Clerks director Kevin Smith’s fandom for comic books is well-known and has led to him writing some titles over the years, especially at DC. However, as good of a relationship as he might have with the publisher, that doesn’t mean they’d give the green light to any idea he brings them.

Making the case

Speaking on his Fatman Beyond podcast, Kevin Smith revealed he made a pitch to them directly that was eventually shot down when it reached DC’s higher-ups at Warner Bros. This is despite everybody he first shared it with, as Smith explained, liking the sound of it and assuring him they were willing to make plans for it. He commented:

"“I had that recently where we pitched a thing, and first I pitched it at like one place and they were like ‘holy f-ck we love this’ and I was like thanks and they’re like ‘we want to do this instantly and we’re gonna find out like if the character is spoken for somewhere else in the company’. And then they came back ‘well it is spoken for someplace else in the company, but they don’t have plans for it and they’re very excited to hear your plans.'”"

It went from there, passing one hurdle with a plausible chance of moving forward. “So I was like right on and they were like ‘look, if they say yeah, it’s happening,'” recalled Smith.

Hitting the wall

But in the arts and entertainment, promises are made before work is started and they’re often broken or amount to nothing. That occurred with Smith’s pitch when it was kicked upstairs to Warner who suddenly had issues with its dark tone:

"“And you hear that all the time in this business and sh-t. And we pitched and the people that we pitched to were like ‘it’s dark’ and I was like ‘well, I mean, you know but it’s also funny’ and they’re like ‘but it’s dark’ and so they didn’t go for it. And it f-cking died there.”"

Instead of giving up, Smith decided to make something else with the elements of his idea unrelated to the property he was vying for:

"So rather than it, and it was for another thing that somebody else owned, but I have brought enough to it where I was like ‘this will totally work without their f-cking thing’."

Burning Question

Smith eventually clarified the mystery property was The Question – DC’s Silver Age acquisition from the defunct Charlton Comics brand he’s had a noted fondness of for years. The filmmaker expressed an interest in adapting the sleuthy character for Netflix back in 2019.

That never materialized either but Smith learned, after a staggering twenty years of wrestling with this property and from a very interesting influence no less, to not let a good concept die on the vine. Smith elaborated it was Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, as a guest on his show, who swayed him into doing his own independent project:

"“It got to that point where I was like I’m f-cking tired after 20 years of trying to make The Question, just go make your own f-cking thing. You know where I got that? Robert Kirkman. On our own show, he talked about like working at Marvel and he was like ‘look, it was fun but I bolted because I’m like why am I giving them all my best ideas just because I love these characters so much, it’s like I’m hostage to my nostalgia. All I do is cross the street, put new names on these stories and they’re mine.’ And I was like, that’s f-cking smart man. So that’s what we did as well.”"

WB’s aversion to anything dark that isn’t Batman-related has affected their judgment in the last few years where it concerns DC’s film slate. The studio pulled the plug on Zack Snyder’s vision for the Justice League in 2017 and tried to make it brighter and more optimistic with the film’s theatrical cut.

They reversed course on that – allowing for the completion and release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League to HBO Max. Other than that exception, there’s room also for Warner/DC pictures such as Joker and The Batman at cinemas and on streaming.

Would you have liked to read Kevin Smith’s “dark” interpretation of The Question in a graphic novel? Do you believe it could’ve been too dark for Warner Bros.? Offer up your thoughts and reactions below.