Director Kevin Smith fears being irrelevant even more than death, according to a recent interview. Smith survived a massive heart attack in 2018, and dropped a massive amount of weight afterward. His doctor claimed his infamous weed-smoking habit actually saved his life.

Once a Gen-X indie icon, Smith has changed quite a bit since his brush with death, and many fans have taken notice. Yes, having a family and a near-death experience will do that to a person.

But strangely, he claims death scares him less than being forgotten, according to something he said to Total Film.

 “Irrelevancy, I guess? I used to be afraid of death then I almost died and realized death wasn’t that scary. It’s just like graduating high school. You have to move on at some point… says the guy who made Clerks fucking III.”

Clerks III has pulled in just $1.5 million at the box office, however it’s in limited release and was produced on a shoestring budget. The last Clerks film, Clerks II, made over $24 million during its theatrical run, while Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back took in over $30 million.

While Smith fans seemingly enjoy the third Clerks film, many critics have been panning it. One of the most infamous reviews was from The Hollywood Reporter, which even stooped to dragging Smith’s heart attack into the critique.

This is the point at which those of us who hold some fond feelings for Smith as a person may be tempted to ignore iffy acting, writing and direction in the name of obvious sincerity and personal closure. On the other hand, any man who still gets to make movies after directing Yoga Hosers is already living on borrowed time, heart attacks be damned. And anyone who keeps going to see them really has no grounds to complain about how drab and uninspired they are.

Ouch.

Smith’s most recent films haven’t been bringing in much at the box office by Hollywood standards, yet he’s still always in the pop culture news feeds.

Like… always. Even when he doesn’t have a movie to promote. Could this be another indication that Smith is indeed terrified of becoming irrelevant and forgotten? Maybe he’s just got one hell of a publicist.

One of Smith’s biggest online controversies in recent years was the drama surrounding the Masters of the Universe: Revelation animated series for Netflix. The show, initially promoted as a sequel to the classic Filmation series, angered many fans when He-Man was sidelined in favor of Teela.

But it shouldn’t have been a surprise with current year Hollywood politics. In fact, fans were warned this was happening months ahead of time.

This site’s very own Publisher and EiC tweeted about rumors he was hearing from people close to the production and was called out by Smith for it.

The series dropped, the rumors were (mostly) accurate, and Smith went into damage control mode. Despite the massive backlash and Netflix cutting back on animation, a second season of Smith’s Masters of the Universe reboot was somehow greenlit.

[Editor’s note: Being publicly called a liar and getting dragged by the media lead to months of harassment, doxxing and even death threats for me and my family. Few, if any, media outlets that ran with Smith’s version of the story even bothered acknowledging that we were mostly correct after the show premiered. Thanks for that, pal. — TP]

But maybe it wasn’t the quality of the show, or the happiness of the fans that ultimately mattered most to Smith. Maybe it was just that he wasn’t being forgotten after all.