Kevin Smith’s career is coming full circle with the production of his latest movie Clerks III. Currently shooting at the old Quick Stop in Leonardo, New Jersey, Clerks III brings back Brian O’Halloran and Jeff Anderson for one last movie highlighting their lives as perennial clerks Dante Hicks and Randal Graves. The movie is a labor of love that Smith has been actively spending the last seven years trying his hardest to get made.
The indie filmmaking legend’s dream of shooting Clerks III has become a reality, and Smith is now just days away from wrapping principal photography. Providing another sneak peek at the sequel, Smith posted a photo online revealing a new black-and-white shot of Dante and Randal at the counter in Clerks III. The image is a complete recreation of a shot from the original Clerks, which is shown on a phone screen for comparison. You can check it out below.
In the caption, Smith writes: “How I Spent My Summer Vacation! They say that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Well I never forgot Clerks, but I’ve still spent the last month repeating it. The Movie-In-Movie moments in Clerks III have been the most fun to shoot, as the cast and crew painstakingly labor to recreate my cinematic past. Here, Brain O’Halloran and Jeff Anderson discuss an obscure 70’s sci-fi flick you’ve probably never heard of. Three more shooting days until we wrap Clerks III. It’s been a blissful trip to the past in the Wayback Machine, but we’re running out of script to shoot now – so the end is near. Took 7 years to get here and now it’s almost over.”
Previously, Smith provided another sneak peek at what’s to come with a photo recreation. The new photo featured the cast of Clerks II — Brian O’Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Rosario Dawson, and Trevor Fehrman — recreating an image that they had taken for the previous sequel so many years ago. The updated image reveals the new Quick Stop uniforms that the clerks will be wearing, though Dawson’s Becky is still rocking the Mooby’s uniform. A separate post from Clerks star Marilyn Ghigliotti has also revealed that Veronica returns in the movie with Ghigliotti celebrating her work on the sequel.
For a long time, Anderson did not want to do Clerks III, which is the primary reason the third movie took so long getting developed. What changed his mind was a new pitch from Smith based on the director’s real-life heart attack which changed his outlook on life. In Clerks III, Anderson’s character Randal similarly suffers a heart attack and devises a plan to make a movie with his co-workers about working at the Quick Stop}. Of course, Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith are also back as Jay and Silent Bob.
We are still waiting on a release date to be announced by Lionsgate for Clerks III, but we can’t be too far off with the sequel almost wrapped with filming. It probably goes without saying that every fan of the original will need to check out the sequel.