Kevin Smith set for Clerks sequel

bckrispi writes "Director Kevin Smith has announced an official sequel to his indie cult classic, Clerks. Currently titled "The Passion of the Clerks", the film will pick up with Dante and Randal ten years after the original as our two heroes trudge through the malaise of their thirties. Jason Mewes, now out of rehab, is back on deck to play Jay across Smith's Silent Bob."

Budget

[mfh]

> None of his movies lived up to the expectations that naturally came about as a result of the edginess of the original Clerks

I think the budget is the reason. Clerks made it so the talent had to shine through because they had no money. Fans of Kevin Smith [viewaskew.com] will rejoice at this news. If you aren't a Kevin Smith fan, you could quickly become one if you happen to see An Evening With Kevin Smith [yahoo.com], where Kevin does hours of Q&A at universities, covering a multitude of topics including his dealings with the religious nut Prince (~Symbol~). Another topic is the strange dealings Kevin had with the creator of one of the Batman movies who kept talking about a huge mechanical spider (who went on to make WWW).

It would be likely much funnier to see "The Passion of the Clerks" stay within the same budget as the first one ($27 k), rather than use up a large studio budget. It's not going to happen, but it would be pretty awesome if they kept the budget low enough to let the talent and quirkiness shine through.

Re:Barely Clerkin?

[Anonymous Coward]

At the end of one of Kevin Smith's movies, it stated that the title of the Clerks sequel would be Clerks 2: Barely Clerkin'.

It was at the end of Dogma, and the title was supposed to be "Still Clerkin"

From the horse's mouth

[sane?]

Why not go to the source [viewaskew.com], rather than CNN, on this one.

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Re:I'm very disappointed.

[garcia]

From this [viewaskew.com] forum post by Kevin:

There are gonna be lots of folks expressing disappointment or downright hostility with the idea of this movie. Let 'em vent. If it's all that bad, Xtian will just sweep it off the board. But the last thing I'm interested in is opinions on what I'm doing this early in the process, if at all. The beauty of making that first flick was being able to do it in a vacuum. Granted, I could've kept my mouth shut about it 'til we were done shooting; but with "Clerks X" coming out, it just felt right to share. Regardless - I don't want folks running here with reports of what's being said about the idea of this film at other boards. Don't waste your/my time with the braying of the jackasses. There's not even a movie to bray about yet. Once there is, if you still still feel the need to tell me what some random, knuckle-headed Talk Backer has to say about the finished product, then God bless. But until then, leave it in the locker room.

Well since there are no girls on Slashdot I'll consider this the "locker room".

If it's not terribly related to Clerks other than the cast why can't you come up with some other completely different name for it? Why must it hang on the success of the first one?

How about you do it on a shoestring budget again? You know the studios will pick it up and they will be especially thrilled if they don't have to shell out millions to the pirates.

As for the rest of his comment I will keep quiet (as he asks) until I see the final result.

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Read Kevin's comments before posting

[psyconaut]

Here... [viewaskew.com] -psy

Re:Oh, come on!

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

And in the interviews and press he did leading up to Jay and Silent Bob he stressed that fact *repeatedly*. I remember him saying on several occasions that he expected the film to completely tank because he "made it for (himself) and the twelve people who obsess over all the minutiae in (his) other movies."

Re:Again?

[crackshoe]

the actor who played dante hicks has played nothing but members of the hicks clan: Dante, Grant, Jim, and Gill (aside from that flick that Steve-Dave wrote and directed - with the clown. then he was a clown. that was pretty cool). Randall has, to my knowledge, never been cast as anyone but randall (doublecheck - he played a gun merchant in dogma)

Re:Million Dollar Question

[htmlboy]

Will it still be in black & white?

from the horse's mouth on the view askew forums [viewaskew.com]:

"The flick's in both black & white and color."

Re:The Future

[VStrider]

LMAO -> Krog & JayAndSilentBob PS: why Krog's and JayAndSilentBob's posts are modded 0 and 1 ?? watch the movies, then mod them +5 funny ;-)

Re:Barely Clerkin?

[Neon Crossing]

http://imdb.com/title/tt0120655/crazycredits [imdb.com] IMDb disagrees.

Re:Budget

[weslocke]

Actually just as a nitpick, it wasn't Batman. It was when he was talking about his involvement with the then-soon-to-be-file-13'ed 'Superman' effort. The producer of the movie was all excited about doing the picture, but could we have Superman in shorts fighting a huge spider?

Kevin talked about how he was like, "uh, yeah... sure... it's your movie, man" and the guy was just all freaky over getting this huge spider into the flick.

Then they brought Tim Burton in to direct it, who turned around and shredded Smith's screenplay. Burton got his own stable of writers in to re-write it until (apparently) it sucked so bad that the entire project got shelved.

Smith said that what really freaked him out was a couple of years later he went to see another movie that was produced by the same guy. It was The Wild, Wild West (I don't think he ever said who it was, but it sounded like it might've been Barry Sonnenfeld)... and what did he see in there? "A huge f!@#ing mechanical spider!"

An Evening With Kevin Smith... don't just watch it... go out and buy it. Unseen. Just buy it. You'll be glad you did.

Re:Think it Will Be Good

[thesupermikey]

Well we already know Olaf made it big. Jay was wears a Berserker world tour short in Stricks back

Re:Oh, come on!

[TheXRayStyle]

I haven't seen the movie in a long, long time, but I seem to remember Dante dying at the end. How the heck are they going to make a sequel to that?

Dante did die in the original ending, but the actual release of the movie did not include that part. The focus groups for the movie didn't like that ending, so the movie really ends with Dante closing the shop and Randall throwing his handmade "I assure you, we're open!" sign inside saying "you're closed now"--(I think...that was from memory)--with them both still very alive.

Re:Barely Clerkin?

[andyrut]

They didn't put huge stars in the movies. They put Kevin Smith's friends who all got their start in his movies in them.

Shannen Doherty (Beverly Hills 90210)
Janeane Garofalo (SNL, a number of movies before Dogma)
Chris Rock (standup)
George Carlin (standup)
Will Ferrell (SNL, more than a dozen movies)
Jon Stewart (Daily Show)
Tracy Morgan (SNL)
James van der Beek (Dawson's Creek)
Jason Biggs (American Pie)
Carrie Fisher (Star Wars, etc.)
Mark Hamill (Star Wars)
Wes Craven (director)
Alanis Morissette (singer)
Salma Hayek (Desperado, etc.) ...and so on and so forth

None of these folks "got their start" in a Kevin Smith movie, yet starred in one or more of them. Come on, dude, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back was one big cameofest.

Re:"Quick buck"?!

[dswensen]

I think not.

Box office data for Clerks [imdb.com]

The movie made over 10 times its budget at the box office. Very few movies can say that. Plus, the movie has to do huge bank on video, as where I live I haven't been able to rent it for ten years, as it's always sold out of every rental joint.

Who it was--Jon Peters

[rd_syringe]

He's also the one who wanted the gay robot after seeing the gay black man in Chasing Amy. And he insisted that there be polar bears guarding the Fortress of Solitude, or someone had to fight a polar bear.

He's a high school dropout, former hairdresser to Barbara Streisand, so what do you expect? Yep, he went on to produce Wild, Wild West as well.

Re:Budget

[biscrage]

From Keving Smiths boards This is not a grab at the green. Saying so is kinda laughable, if you're privy to what I make per film now, vs. what I'll make for this film. Part of the idea about doing "Passion" is to strip away the trappings of success we've been enjoying for the last few years, in an effort to get to the raw and pure. None of us are making our usual salaries on this flick; we're all doing it favored-nations style, with deferments. If the flick does well, we'll get paid our full-freight on the back-end. If not, we did it for the love. But if I was "all about the green", I'd be gearing up for "Hornet" or "Fletch" instead. This one's about the passion; the passion of the "Clerks." So hes not going low budget to make more money and who said anything about respect. And on that not Im leaving this conversation before I end up posting his whole message board here.

Re:Huh

[kubrick]

Tarantino wrote the scripts for True Romance and Natural Born Killers, but he disowned the second after Oliver Stone pissed all over it.

Also, you're forgetting Jackie Brown, a film that I really liked; definitely better than Pulp Fiction. Probably the most personal and "human" of his films, mostly steering clear of caricature, something he and Smith are both prone to.

Re:Oh, come on!

[Diag]

Maybe he's made other good movies

Happy Gilmore.