Dogma: Cult favourite Kevin Smith movie you can finally watch again after rights tangle

One of the lessons of the digital media era is to never throw away your physical media.

If there’s a movie or TV series that you need to rewatch time and again, buy it on a disc. Digital rights are capricious and will flit out of your life without notice.

Or, in the case of Dogma, it was never released on streaming or digital rental in the first place. The last time Kevin Smith’s irreverent 1999 comedy, starring Ben Affleck and Matt Damon as fallen angels, was available was in 2008, when it was still in print on DVD.

Since then, Dogma has become one of the many titles that have fallen into the black hole of digital rights.

Most streaming libraries are heavily weighted to titles released in the past two decades.

At least in the case of Dogma, Smith has now bought back ownership of his film, just weeks ahead of its 25th anniversary in November.

The filmmaker revealed on the That Hashtag Show, “The movie’s been brought away from the guy that had it for years and whatnot”. “The guy” in that sentence was actually two guys, Harvey and Bob Weinstein.

Smith may not be naming them now, but he worked with the Weinsteins for several years, starting with his break-out indie movie Clerks, which debuted the characters of Jay and Silent Bob. Smith shot the black-and-white film for $US27,000.

Through Miramax, the Weinsteins bought Clerks after its Sundance premiere in 1994. Smith would continue to work with the Weinsteins until 2008 when he released Zack and Miri Make a Porno.

In 2019, Smith confirmed in a social media post, “Dogma is personally owned by Bob & Harvey Weinstein, who bought the film from Disney in 1999 and licenced it to Lionsgate (for theatrical) and then Sony (for home video). But those deals pre-dated streaming and have lapsed.”

The rights for Dogma continued to be a contentious issue.

Bob Weinstein claimed Harvey tried to sell them to him for an inflated price, which Harvey denied. In 2022, Smith said he had tried to buy the rights from the Weinsteins but his offers were rejected.

At the time, Smith said, “My movie about angels is owned by the devil himself”.

With the rights now under Smith’s control, he flagged he will be re-releasing the film in cinemas and on home entertainment, which could include streaming, next year. Smith is also known for his Q&A tours, either to promote new screen projects, podcast, books or just for kicks, and he has flagged he will do the same with Dogma.

Dogma was Smith’s fourth movie and had a stacked cast including frequent collaborators Affleck and Jason Mewes, Damon, Salma Hayek, Jason Lee, Chris Rock, George Carlin, Alan Rickman, Janeane Garofalo, Linda Fiorentino and Alanis Morissette, who had a memorable cameo as a mute God.

The film centred on Bartleby (Affleck) and Loki (Damon), two angels banished from heaven for challenging God. On the mortal plane, they seek a way back home and discover a loophole to allow them to re-enter heaven.

Unknown to them, if they succeed, they would prove God wrong and undo all of existence.

A human woman named Bethany (Fiorentino) is recruited to stop Bartleby and Loki by agents of God (Rickman, Rock, Hayek) because she is the last living relative of Jesus. Out to stop her are Lucifer’s minions, including Azrael (Lee).

Jay and Silent Bob, who crossover most of Smith’s films, are also along for the ride as two “prophets”.

Dogma is a favourite among Smith fans for its witty humour and its willingness to play with Catholicism, although it ultimately affirms Christian faith.

Smith is Catholic but that did not save him from controversy on its release.

The American Catholic League condemned it as “blasphemous” and called for it to be banned or boycotted while screenings were also picketed by protestors, which only fuelled interest in the film. Smith said he received three death threats.

Disney, which owned Miramax, was pressured into distancing itself from the movie and Dogma was eventually released by Lionsgate.

At the time, the Catholic League’s media director, Patrick Scully, said, “He doesn’t get a free pass to make an anti-Catholic movie because he happens to be a Catholic.

“Catholic-bashing has become a staple of American society.”