What Happened To Kevin Smith's 'Dogma' Movie?

TV & Film

Jan 28

Dogma was one of Kevin Smith’s most popular movies. But the fourth instalment of the View Askew universe has disappeared, it doesn’t exist on any streaming services and physical copies are few and far between. The last official release was on Blu-ray back in 2008. So what happened?

Dogma is about two angels looking to re-enter heaven, it has an all-star cast, containing Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, comedian Chris Rock, Salma Hayek, the late Alan Rickman, and, of course, the pairing of Jay and Silent Bob. It grossed a respectable 44 million at the box office from a 10 million production budget. Its creator Kevin Smith famously went viral for getting caught protesting his own movie.

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The story begins in the late 1990s. Kevin Smith was desperately trying to get the religious comedy made. Disney had owned Miramax since 1993, and boss Michael Eisner had instructed the studio to shut the film down. Eisner was scared that Dogma would upset the Catholic community. Harvey Weinstein responded by personally buying the distribution and home video rights. He did a deal with Lionsgate, so Dogma was able to be put out without the help of Miramax. Weinstein was also responsible for some larger changes to the film, such as Linda Florentino replacing Joey Lauren Adams from Chasing Amy as lead, Bethany.

It all seemed like it was going fine.

Kevin Smith received more good news, when in 2017, completely out of the blue, he got a phone call from Harvey Weinstein. The mogul asked Smith if he would like to work on a Dogma sequel and/or work together to make the film available for streaming. Despite having worked closely with Weinstein in his early career, Smith says he had not spoken to the famous producer in over a decade, but he said he was obviously excited.

A week later, an article in the Times was released detailing all the sexual abuse conducted by Harvey Weinstein during his tenure in Hollywood. Smith says he ‘felt sick’. He spoke to a friend in the industry, who said that Weinstein ‘called everyone because he knew the story was coming, and he wanted to find out who spoke [to the Times].’

But the phone call may also have been to garner support. Weinstein had funded Kevin Smith’s movies in the past, and he may have hoped to get Smith onside by doing so again. It did not work. Kevin Smith has since put any profits he has made from Harvey Weinstein-linked projects, including anything to have come from Miramax studios to the charity Women in Film.

Weinstein took the rejection to heart. Kevin Smith made several attempts to buy back the rights to Dogma, offering as much as one million dollars. Weinstein has flatly refused his offer, wanting five times that figure, far more than it was worth.

The incarcerated producer has sat on Dogma for over fifteen years, but in March 2023 Kevin Smith stated that a mystery company had made headway with Weinstein. The small snippet of speech infers that Weinstein and the company were close to a deal. Kevin Smith seemed hopeful that Dogma would be distributed again. Fans theorized that the secret group was Arrow Videos, who had bought the rights to Mallrats for the 2020 25th anniversary special edition Blu-ray. However, almost a year later there have been no more updates, so it’s possible that Harvey Weinstein pulled out once again.

There are versions of Dogma on YouTube, including unofficial cuts with deleted scenes inserted. EBay also has DVD copies available for sale, albeit at inflated prices. This might be the only way to see Dogma for the foreseeable future.

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