Remember when we thought Johnny Depp was going to be working with Kevin Smith on TUSK? Well, to quote James Rebhorn in INDEPENDENCE DAY, that's not entirely inaccurate.
Smith and Depp will team up on the director's follow-up to TUSK, an action-comedy titled YOGA HOSERS. Allegedly "second installment of Smith’s True North Trilogy, movies which are steeped in Canadian myths and culture," YOGA HOSERS actually stars the daughters of Smith and Depp, Harley Quinn Smith and Lily-Rose Depp, respectively. The two play a pair of Canadian teenage girls/yoga aficionados who join forces with a Quebecois investigator named Guy LaPointe (Depp) to battle a threat to the earth, and, by extension, the older-kid party they've been invited to.
Interestingly enough, the character Depp is playing, Guy LaPointe, was who we thought was appearing as the fifth lead in TUSK. We haven't heard mum on whether Depp is actually in TUSK or not (though signs are pointing to "nay"), but the rest of that film's cast, including Michael Parks, Justin Long, and Haley Joel Osment, is expected to return for this one (along with newbies Tony Hale, Natasha Lyonne, and Adam Brody).
Depp and Smith's daughters go to school together, and Smith has repeatedly said that a collaboration between the two was far from out of the question. This seems like an oddball enough project for Depp to lend his highly-valued talents to, and the teen-centric premise is something that Smith hasn't really tackled up to this point (particularly the fact that the central duo are GIRLS!! *gasp*).
At the same time his public persona is becoming more widespread and cemented, his cinematic output is continually defying expectation, showing little-to-nothing of the camera-on-a-tripod, verbose writer-director that exploded on the scene with CLERKS 20 years ago. More than being excited by TUSK and YOGA HOSERS, I just plain don't know what to expect from them, and if that pays off as well as it did with RED STATE (at least for myself), then I couldn't be happier with this latest, brave chapter in Smith's career.
In Smith's own words:
"People always ask me ‘Are you ever going to make a comic book movie? This is it - but instead of yet another dude saving the day, our antiheroes are the most feared and formidable creatures man has ever encountered: two fifteen year old girls."
-Vincent Kim-Zahedi
”Papa Vinyard”
vincentzahedi@gmail.com
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