Kevin Smith Doesn’t Want to Direct Marvel or Star Wars, But He’d Like to Make Cameos

Fanboy-friendly filmmaker Kevin Smith wants to enter the Marvel Studios and Star Wars universes, but not behind the camera: the Clerks and Mallrats director says he'd rather cameo in a Marvel movie or appear on an episode of The Mandalorian. As an actor, Smith most frequently portrays fictionalized versions of himself in-between starring as Silent Bob, the mostly mute stoner sidekick of Jason Mewes' Jay, in Smith's View Askewniverse. Other on-screen credits for the comic book aficionado include a role as a forensic assistant in the Ben Affleck-starring Daredevil and computer hacker Warlock opposite Bruce Willis in Live Free or Die Hard.

"I love Marvel, but I don't necessarily want to go play in their universe. I'm okay to watch those movies," Smith said on Dan Fogler's 4d Xperience. "I never watch one of those movies and go, 'Boy, I'd like to make one.' I always watch those movies and go like, 'Boy, I'm glad somebody made that.'"

Smith receives a shoutout in 1995-set Marvel Studios blockbuster Captain Marvel when Stan Lee, who appears in Mallrats, cameos as a bus rider reading the script for Smith's Clerks followup. In Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, an unrecognizable Smith makes a silent cameo as a cloaked villager on the snowy planet of Kajimi.

"If somebody was ever gonna call me up and be like, 'We're calling from The Mandalorian,' I would hope that they're calling to be like, 'Will you be in it? On camera?'" Smith said. "I'd much rather do that than direct that sh-t. Directing that sh-t looks hard, leave that to the geniuses. But I would love to be in that f—ing show."

"Same with Marvel. I would never want to make a Marvel movie, but give me one scene," Smith continued. "Put me in one of them Marvel movies that makes a billion dollars. That way when all this Jay and Silent Bob sh-t is done I can go to Comic-Con and sit in the back of the room tagging photos of myself in a Marvel movie at $20 a pop."

"That sh-t pays for life," he added, laughing.

Smith has directed multiple episodes of DC Comics-inspired television series The Flash and Supergirl, taking place in The CW's Arrowverse, and penned the script for director Tim Burton's abandoned Superman Lives.

Asked about his superhero movie candidacy in a 2018 interview with MTV, Smith said, "I'm the guy that likes to watch that stuff, but I don't have the patience or the ability to sit through one of those things making it, and I don't know it would turn out very well if I did."