Kevin Smith has signed his Hockey Goon

Kevin Smith has a chance to make an honest-to-god, genuine classic with his planned adaptation of the fantastic Warren Zevon song Hit Somebody. I'm one of the few that have always preferred Smith's sentimentality to his easy geek references in his films, and Zevon's song tells a pretty endearing and sentimental yarn about a Canadian hockey player who achieved his dream to play professional hockey, but only for his "Hanson Brothers-like" brutality and not for his skill as a player.

I've found Smith's enthusiasm for the project to be quite encouraging and his overall attitude as a filmmaker seems to have changed for the better over the last few months based on recent interviews. This could be a chance for him to impress and surprise audiences in a way he hasn't since Chasing Amy or Dogma. Along with his Degrassi and Gretzky worshipping, this is also further substantiate his honorary Canadian citizenship status. (And... if the trailer is any indication... it will make up for the fairly pedestrian and mediocre looking Cop Out.)

During an interview about the film with the NHL, Smith announced that Sean William Scott will be be playing Buddy, the hockey-goon protagonist of the song that yearns to score just one damn goal. Scott definitely wouldn't have been my first choice for the role, but I've always found him to be a rather underrated actor. He's charismatic and amusingly irritating opposite The Rock in The Rundown and in Southland Tales there were definitely glimpses of a complexity I was not expecting to see come out of Stifler. 

No word yet as to whether David Letterman, who exclaims the song's title throughout the chorus, will appear in the film.

AICN linked the song in their posting of this story, and I'll do the same as its truly a wonderful song from one of my favorite American singer-songwriters.