Originally Posted by Omniconsumer93:
“Looks like Clerks was originally distributed theatrically by Polygram, which obviously went bust. The video rights were sold to Buena Vista, but now the TV rights (bundled with theatrical rights) have now reverted to Kevin Smith (he sold the rights for 20 years but was in limbo when Polygram went), and he's sold them to Film4.”
According to the BBFC, Artifical Eye distributed it originally both theatrically and on home video in the UK, although I'm wondering if Miramax held international rights and sold them to Artificial Eye for UK distribution - in the same way The Weinstein Company uses Entertainment Film Distributors in the UK), then the rights reverted back to Disney/Miramax. If that's the case it seems weird to me that the rights would expire in the UK before elsewhere.
But the comments Kevin Smith made were about a stage show production of
Clerks (IIRC it was on his Hollywood Babble-On podcast, where somebody had sent him a link to an unauthorised German
Clerks musical), which he said he couldn't do in the US because Miramax held the rights, but the rights would be reverting back to him this year in the UK, so he was looking at doing something over here.