Here’s What Kevin Smith’s ‘Dogma’ Sequel Is About

Kevin Smith’s Dogma is finally free from intellectual property purgatory. In addition to an theatrical run and a Blu-ray release soon after that, the film just returned to the Cannes Film Festival, where it first screened back in 1999. Presumably it was the only movie at the fest co-starring a rubber shit monster.

Now that the rights are available once again, Smith is working on a Dogma sequel. After initially announcing the project and heralding the return of stars Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, last fall Smith was forced to walk back the big news, clarifying that he hadn’t actually spoken to the actors and had yet to start work on the script. 

While there’s not any casting news to speak of, Smith has provided one important update: He’s at least started the script. “I’m writing the sequel,” the director stated in an interview for Cannes’ website. “I’ve been writing it for the last six months. But this time, the director I am no longer has faith.”

He’s seemingly referring to the fact that, even though the original Dogma was labeled blasphemous by some evangelicals, he still considered himself to be a devoted Catholic, and saw the movie as a way to promote organized religion, rather than mock it. 

“It’s a bit disconcerting because you’re trying to do the work of Christ … to go out there and spread the good word,” Smith told the The Los Angeles Times back in 1999. “I don’t make a movie like Dogma to make fun of the Catholic Church. I talk about stuff in Dogma to make the church more human so people aren’t so put off by it. Faith is something you can attain.” 

But nowadays, he no longer thinks of himself religious. “(Life is) not about living in service to some being you can’t see. It’s about living in service to everyone here,” Smith said in 2015. “Aren’t we supposed to be beings of our own little universes, make things better, not rely on somebody in the sky to help us out?”

And that personal shift is apparently going to be at the forefront of Dogma 2. “It is going to be about how to be Christian when you’re no longer Christian,” Smith revealed in Cannes. “Even though I don’t consider myself to be a believer, I still live a pretty Christian life. It was burnt into me as a child. When I learned to walk, I also learned to be good to others. That’s something that doesn’t go away because you declare: ‘I don’t believe in God anymore.’”

Also, while the villain of the original movie was a fedora-wearing demon named Azrael…

…the sequel will up the evil ante with a new/very old character. “The film will also be about the devil,” Smith revealed. “We don’t talk enough about the devil in Dogma.”

Although, to be fair, the devil did own the first movie for a while.