When Kevin Smith’s Clerks III finally hits theaters this fall, the filmmaker says there’s a fun and somewhat moving surprise during the end credits. Rather than just a quick wink and a nod, like Jay and Bob’s post-credits stinger on Jay & Silent Bob Reboot, this one sounds like it is going to feature the director himself — but as the director, not as Silent Bob. Speaking in an episode of Fatman Beyond with his co-host Marc Bernardin, Smith broke down fan reactions from the world premiere of the movie in Los Angeles.
Smith noted that while most of the time, doing comedies means he hates hearing a silent audience, this movie had some emotional beats that were satisfying to see the audience really engaging with. And then he gave them a little food for thought as things wrapped up.
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“The movie ends proper, kids, but then I found more real estate to stick my f–ing voice, as if my voice isn’t heard enough in this movie,” Smith said. “I found real estate during the credits, where I was like, ‘I should put up more talking,’ and so in the end credits, I talk you through the end credits. It’s a little bit poignant what I talk about, and people responded to that in such a big, bad way.”
You can see the episode below.
Clerks III, which is set to be distributed by Lionsgate, is Smith’s first new feature film since Jay & Silent Bob Reboot, in which Brian O’Halloran’s Dante Hicks, the point-of-view character in the original Clerks and its 2006 sequel, Clerks II. That movie was the last time fans got a look at Jeff Anderson’s Randal Graves, who appears to be the lead in Clerks III.
Randal, who has always been something of a wish-fulfillment character for Smith himself, is set to suffer a life-threatening heart attack in the movie, as Smith did in real life. It will spur the lifelong slacker to find the one thing he likes better than working retail and making fun of his customers: he’s going to make a movie.
A movie about working retail and making fun of his customers, naturally.
There have been a few different ideas for Clerks 3 over the years, with one getting so far that there was a live script reading in 2020. Smith has suggested in the past that the holdout was Jeff Anderson, who is more reluctant to return to the world of Clerks than the rest of the cast. Randal is irreplaceable, though, and without all of the leads on board, Smith has said that it’s a non-starter. This time, Smith brings back Marilyn Ghigliotti, who played Dante’s girlfriend Veronica in Clerks. She is the rare View Askew lead who has not been seen in another of Smith’s movies since, making her return especially significant.
The first Clerks centered on one very bad day in the life of Dante Hicks, a convenience store worker who got called into work on his day off and spent the whole shift dealing with belligerent customers, freak occurrences, a sex-obsessed ex-girlfriend, and his obnoxious best friend, Randal. Clerks II saw Dante ready to settle down and get married — but secretly in love with someone else, and dealing with the reality that he has one day to decide where his heart lies.
Clerks III will be released this fall.
