Filmmaker Jody Hill was preparing to go to Albuquerque to shoot Observe and Report last year when he found out that his wasn't the only mall-cop comedy in development. But Hill —  director of The Foot Fist Way and co-creator of HBO's Eastbound and Down — wasn't afraid of Paul Blart: "I figured it was gonna suck," he told us at South by Southwest today.

Still, because the two films are being released so closely together (Observe and Report premiered at SXSW last night and hits theaters April 10), he admits that the inevitable comparisons irk him a bit, even if he knew his would be better (Variety today calls it a "shockingly and sometimes discomfortingly funny comedy"). "It's annoying that every time I read an article, they mention this piece-of-shit movie," he said. "I don't want a battle of the mall cops. If somebody's doing something, I don't want to do that."

Earlier: Paul Blart: Mall Cop Not Your Only Mall-Cop Movie Option in 2009