Looks like we’ll all be headed back to the Quick Stop to check in on Dante and Randal once again in 2022. Recently, Kevin Smith announced that filming on Clerks 3 had officially wrapped, and as this serves as another sequel to his very first movie, it’s a bit of a full-circle moment for him. The project is in the works at Lionsgate, and while the studio hasn’t yet set an official release date, Smith has revealed in a new tweet that the movie will come sometime next year.
And since I still can’t let it go… CLERKS III in 2022!!! https://t.co/6gIqjbfhzD
— KevinSmith (@ThatKevinSmith) October 20, 2021
“Kevin Smith’s Clerks premiered in theaters 27 years ago today, Oct. 19, 1994,” says one tweet from RetroNewsNow. Smith retweeted it and added his own message that reads, “And since I still can’t let it go… Clerks III in 2022!!!”
This release is especially exciting for longtime fans of Kevin Smith. The filmmaker began his career with the original Clerks in 1994, basing the black-and-white feature on his actual job as a clerk at the Quick Stop convenience store in Leonardo, New Jersey. In addition to writing and directing, Smith also played Silent Bob with his good pal Jay Mewes playing his stoner buddy Jay. The movie also starred Brian O’Halloran and Jeff Anderson as the titular clerks.
Jay and Silent Bob returned along with Dante and Randal in 2006’s Clerks II. For years, Kevin Smith had hoped to make a third installment, but it wasn’t until August when cameras finally started rolling on the project. The new movie will follow Randal (Jeff Anderson) and Dante (Brian O’Halloran) making a movie at the Quick Stop about their lives as clerks, echoing what Smith had done in real life. Smith, Jay Mewes, Marilyn Ghigliotti, Rosario Dawson, and Trevor Fehrman also return.
“There’s a saying from the Tao that goes something like ‘To be great is to go on. To go on is to go far. To go far is to return.’ Thanks to Lionsgate, we get to return to where it all started with almost the whole cast that started it all!” Smith said in a statement when the sequel was officially greenlit. “And for the first time since the first time we ever made a movie in 1993, we’re shooting the entire flick on location in New Jersey, as an ode to both the enduring allure of cinema and the resourcefulness and lunacy of its storytellers. Years ago, Dante and Randal made me a filmmaker – so now it’s time I return the favor.”
When the project wrapped in August, Smith shared a sneak peek image of the movie. He said in the post, “What had once been a whimsical wish is now rooted in reality – and Dante, Randal, Becky, Elias, and Jay and Silent bob all have new s–t to say for the first time in over a decade! In what’s about as personal a movie as I’ve made, we watch our heroes grapple with their own mortality by embracing art. Art changed *my* life – so it’s only fair art enhances the lives of my favorite fictional characters as well.”
Kevin Smith wrapped shooting in less than a month, and during production, he shared many updates and sneak peeks on Clerks III. This includes the return of Chewlie’s Gum among many other references to the first two Clerks movies. There hadn’t been any word yet on a release date, but Smith now says it’s coming sometime in 2022. Let’s hope it’s earlier in the year as opposed to later.
Source: movieweb.com