Kevin Smith Confirms Matt Damon Will Play Loki in Jay & Silent Bob Reboot

Almost twenty years after playing himself in Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, Hollywood superstar Matt Damon will return to one of his most fan-favorite roles in Jay & Silent Bob Reboot -- and it's one probably nobody expected to see again. As many audience members guessed after seeing his wardrobe in the trailer for Reboot, Damon will play the role of Loki, one of a pair of angels who served as the antagonists in Dogma, filmmaker Kevin Smith's 1999 comedy that immediately preceded Strike Back in the "View Askewniverse" canon. In that film, Loki and his partner Bartleby (Ben Affleck) had been banished from Heaven, but tried to re-enter their home through a loophole provided by the Catholic church.

Why did this make them villains? Well, it was kind of complicated, but the basic gist of it was that to thwart God's will in that particular way would have destroyed the world. By the time the film ended, Bartleby and Loki were killed. The film was notable in part because while Jay and Silent Bob had enjoyed fairly minor roles in Smith's first three films, they played a much more significant role in Dogma, so much so that it likely convinced Smith that a Jay and Silent Bob-centric movie was a plausible idea. But...Loki is dead, right? So what happened? Well, here's Smith, explaining it on Instagram.

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If you’ve seen the @jayandsilentbob trailer (link in my bio) then you know #mattdamon came back! Matty was part of the fun in #jayandsilentbobstrikeback so when we started #JayAndSilentBobReboot, we reached out to Matt to see if he wanted to return to the scene of the crime. When he confirmed, I started thinking about how to best use good Will Hunting and which role he could play. Then @jenschwalbach suggested “Why don’t you use him as Loki?” I scoffed like a hardcore Kevin Smith fan, replying “I can’t play with Loki. Loki died.” Jen smiled and said “Well it’s a good thing you don’t know the writer, or else you might be able to change your idea.” And just like that, my wife made the movie better. I asked costume designer @ruckusaurus to put together a Loki-looking ensemble, found a church, and broke out my life size Dogma action figure. And with that, I was able to do mini-sequels to *all* my #viewaskew flicks in the middle of #jayandsilentbobreboot! Wanna see how it all comes together? Check out our @fathomevents Sneak Preview screenings on October 15th and 17th or come watch the flick with me and @jaymewes when the @jayandsilentbob Reboot Roadshow hits a theater near you! #KevinSmith #goodwillhunting #90skids #viewaskewniverse

A post shared by Kevin Smith (@thatkevinsmith) on Jul 29, 2019 at 7:32am PDT

As Smith notes, the inclusion of Loki means that characters (besides Jay and Bob) from Clerks (Brian O'Halloran's Dante Hicks), Mallrats (Jason Lee's Brodie Bruce), Chasing Amy (Ben Affleck's Holden McNeil and Joey Lauren Adams's Alyssa Jones), Dogma (Loki), and Clerks II (Rosario Dawson's Becky) all make appearances in the film, effectively following up stories and characters from every View Askewniverse movie Smith has ever done.

In another strange bit of irony, Matt Damon's turn as Loki was another kind of return: if you remember, Damon played the role of an actor playing Loki in Thor: Ragnarok. While Tom Hiddleston's Loki will appear in his own Disney+ show, who would have guessed it would be Damon who got to use the name next?

Jay & Silent Bob Reboot will start a theatrical roadshow in October, beginning with a two-night Fathom Events premiere in select theaters.