Smith made offers of $250,000 and $500,000, both of which were rejected. As the filmmaker further explained, Lionsgate had theatrical and Sony had home video rights. But those rights eventually lapsed, with Weinstein just squatting on them. So, Smith reached out to some friends, including his frequent collaborators Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, to give it another shot.
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“I reached out to some people who might have a vested interest in seeing Dogma perhaps live on, become something else. I called Ben [Affleck] and Matt [Damon]. Then, I wrote the letter and said the same s***, but I offered a million dollars, and we were told no. And that was it, I was like, there’s no way I could get more than that. I heard that he was looking for 5 million.”
For a little while, that was that. Then, in 2024, Smith revealed that “Dogma” was no longer in Weinstein’s control. At the time, he didn’t reveal who had the rights or how they were acquired. “One day out of the blue, I get a call from this woman Alessandra, who’s like, ‘Hi, we bought Dogma, can you come talk about it?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, who are you? What the f***?'” Smith revealed. So, Smith agreed to a meeting with the new mystery rights holders.
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“There was this woman, Alessandra, and this guy Bay, sitting there, and they told me a story about what happened,” Smith explained. “They said, ‘Well, Harvey sold off a tranche of movies, he is going into legal battle yet again, so he needed more money, so he sold off a bunch of movies that he owned, 10 films.'”
One of those films was indeed “Dogma,” and that’s the only one they kept, having sold off the rights to the other nine. “I was like, ‘Oh, can we buy it?'” Smith asked. That didn’t happen but what did happen was almost just as good.
“They’re like, ‘No. But you can do anything you want with it,’ and I was like, ‘Seriously?’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah, man, what do you want to do?’ I was like, ‘Well, I would f******g take it out on tour and stuff, that’s what I’ve been doing with my movies lately, it’s a hoot.’ And they’re like, ‘Okay, well, what about putting it in theaters?'”
