Remember how in Kevin Smith’s 1994 breakout Clerks, one of the clerks was playing hooky on his job as a video-store clerk to hang out with that other clerk? Now, video stores are a historical relic akin to Mayan pyramids only not as well-preserved, and all those slacker-youth main characters have reached middle age. Today, Deadline announced that Smith will expand the View Askewniverse with Clerks III, which is already in preproduction in New Jersey. The major cast from the first two films will reprise their roles, including Jeff Anderson (Randal), Brian O’Halloran (Dante), Jay Mewes (Jay), Rosario Dawson (Becky), and Smith as Silent Bob. The plot description sounds suitably meta for this band of geeks: “In Clerks III, following a massive heart attack, Randal enlists Dante, Elias, Jay, and Silent Bob to make a movie immortalizing his life at the convenience store that started it all.†They’ll film entirely on location in New Jersey.
Smith tweeted out the announcement, writing, “To be great is to go on. To go on is to go far. To go far is to return.†Smith also clarified that filming will begin on August 2, his birthday.