Kevin Smith Calls Clerks III The Empire Strikes Back Of The Trilogy; Scheduled To Shoot June 2015

The status of Kevin Smith’s third outing for convenience store workers Dante and Randal has shifted considerably over the last few years. Originally, Smith abandoned the idea of a big screen feature, and proposed to round out the trilogy in a comic book series. Then, it was announced it’d be a TV show. After months of back and forth indecision, the filmmaker committed to making Clerks III as a live-action film, which seems to finally be making some headway.

Since completing a script back in May 2013, Smith’s attempts to get the project into pre-production have been thwarted at every turn. Original backers, The Weinstein Company, refused to stump up the funds to finance the pic which inevitably set things back and gave Smith chance to helm Walrus horror, Tusk. While it may have been critically divisive, it nevertheless impressed the right folks as Clerks III gained financing off the back of Tusk. Since then, we’ve heard little to indicate where exactly the film will fit into Smith’s hectic slate.

During Smith’s latest SMODCAST podcast (via JoBlo), the filmmaker and long-time producer Scott Mosier, had a chat with Clerks alum, Jeff Anderson. Known for his turn a wise-cracking Randal in the first two films, Smith and Mosier broached the topic of Clerks III with the actor, who had this to say about the screenplay:

I like the script. It’s being introduced to these characters that are friends. Friends of mine. Friends of ours. Whether or not I was going to do the movie, I wanted to read the script. Just for closure for myself! F*ck the fans, I just wanna know! Yeah, it’s a very different movie and that’s what I like about it. CLERKS 2 was a very different movie from 1, but it wasn’t THAT different. CLERKS 3 . . . still not THAT different, but different in a different way. Different, different, different, different.

CLERKS to me was a gritty movie. CLERKS 2 became this brighter movie. CLERKS 3 to me feels somewhere between 1 and 2. It feels a little gritty and we go back to the beginning stages, but we do see the progression.

Perhaps out of all the comments from the episode, Smith’s remarks on whether or not Clerks III would be in black and white prompted the coolest comparison:

The first ten minutes are in black and white. We do enough black and white that kinda makes sense. But I like where [the story] f*cking goes so much. It’s my favorite soap opera now. It’s kinda like THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK of the CLERKS movies. It doesn’t tell the middle story, but it has that kinda feeling.

If you weren’t already excited, then that soundbite alone is enough to warrant Doberman-style dribbling. We’ll have a bit of a wait to determine whether our endless excitement is warranted, as Smith plans on lensing Tusk spinoff Yoga Hosers before tackling Clerks III.