Kevin Smith Making Clerks 3 With A Major Twist For The Characters
Kevin Smith is making a big change with Clerks 3.
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Kevin Smith is coming back with Clerks III, the third installment in the franchise that launched his career. Deadline reports the film will begin filming in New Jersey next month.
Clerks III will have its original stars return to reprise their roles. That means fans will get to see Jeff Anderson as Randal, Brian O’Halloran as Dante, Jay Mewes as Jay, Kevin Smith as Silent Bob, and Rosario Dawson as Becky in the third entry of the series. Dawson is the only one who was not featured in the original movie but made her first appearance in the 2006 sequel.
The premise hits close to home for Kevin Smith, making this one of his most personal movies to date. It follows Randal after a nearly fatal heart attack like the one Smith had survived in 2018; he gathers his friends Dante, Elias, Jay, and Silent Bob to make a movie to keep his memory alive.
Kevin Smith will direct and write the script, as he did with its predecessors. Three Point Capital and BondIt Media Capital will finance Clerks III. Liz Destro and Jordan Monsanto will be the producers. David Gendron and Ali Jazayeri for Three Point and Matthew Helderman and Luke Taylor from BondIt Media are the executive producers.
Lionsgate is the driving force to get this made. The studio acquired the rights, and now people can see Kevin Smith have another go with some of his most iconic characters.
To harken back to its roots, Kevin Smith will shoot the whole movie on location in New Jersey.
Clerks III is another addition to a cinematic universe that Kevin Smith created known as View Askewniverse. Including this latest installment are the first two Clerks movies from 1994 and the 2006 sequel. Accompanying the world-building that continues to grow is 2001’s Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and, most recently, 2019’s Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.
Kevin Smith’s other notable movies include Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Red State, and Tusk. He has also directed some episodes of The Flash and Supergirl TV shows. Mallrats will get a sequel after the third Clerks movie is made with Twilight of the Mallrats. It sounds like it will hit similarly to Clerks III, with the original cast set to return.
Kevin Smith’s directorial debut was with Clerks. The film launched his career and was a surprising hit. Off a $27,000 budget, it grossed $3.1 million. While the sequel was not as well-received as its predecessor, which became a cult classic, it was a bigger financial success. Clerks II had a $5 million budget and grossed over $26 million.
Lately, the filmmaker has kept himself busy. As Kevin Smith is about to kick off Clerks III, he just released his Netflix animated series Masters of the Universe: Revelation, bringing He-Man back to life on the small screen. It stars Adam Gifford (Longmire), Denis Haysbert (Lucifer), Chris Wood (Supergirl), Diedrich Bader (Harley Quinn), Kevin Conroy (Batman: The Animated Series), Liam Cunningham (Game of Thrones), Lena Heady (Game of Thrones), and Mark Hamill (Star Wars).
