Oh yeah? Clerks 3, eh? Kevin Smith has promised a second and presumably final sequel to his groundbreaking 1994 comedy for so long, it’s tough to take seriously. I recall him talking about it in 2012, around the time he was trying to make that hockey movie Hit Somebody (Did that ever happen? Can’t remember.), only for it to die a couple of years later when the Weinsteins passed on it. In hindsight that was probably a blessing. But only a few months later he was teasing a summer shoot that never happened, the film died yet again in 2017 as plans for Jay and Silent Bob Reboot started to firm up.
Now with Jay and Silent Bob Reboot just days away from release, Smith is back and hyping up Clerks 3 again. He revealed on social media that a conversation with Jeff Anderson, who starred in Clerks and 2006’s Clerks II as ultimate slacker/cinephile Randal Graves, drove him to want to make Clerks 3 a reality…
“We talked about making a movie together,” Smith said. “It’ll be a movie that concludes a saga. It’ll be a movie about how you’re never too old to completely change your life. It’ll be a movie about how a decades-spanning friendship finally confronts the future. It’ll be a movie that brings us back to the beginning – a return to the cradle of civilization in the great state of #newjersey. It’ll be a movie that stars Jeff and @briancohalloran, with me and Jay in supporting roles. And it’ll be a movie called CLERKS III!”
I’ll always be a fan of Smith’s View Askew characters and nothing pleases me more than the idea of wrapping up the Clerks story with one final movie. This has always been where Smith has shown the most passion and done his best work. None of these movies are what you’d call hits, but they are labors of love and this would be, too. Now that Jay and Silent Bob Reboot is finished and headed to theaters on October 15th, there’s more reason to believe Smith will finally complete the Clerks trilogy.
