Kevin Smith shared another look at Clerks III ahead of the first trailer’s release date.
Shared by Smith on Instagram, the image shows the protagonists of the upcoming Clerks sequel, Dante and Randall, played by Brian O’Halloran and Jeff Anderson, in front of their convenience store. As described by Smith in the caption, the image also shows Jay and Silent Bob (played by Smith and Jason Mewes, respectively) “still loitering” in the background, along with “genial Jesus-junkie Elias” played by Trevor Fehrman and “a new friend,” played by Austin Zajur. Underneath Dante and Randall in the poster reads the film’s tagline: “They’re too old for this shift.”
This is the latest in a series of images that Smith has released in the days leading up to the trailer for Clerks III, which is slated to arrive on July 6. “The good folks in the Lionsgate marketing department made a ton of awesome artwork to promote my third Clerks movie,” Smith previously said. He also announced that he’d reveal the “official” Clerks III poster on the same day as the trailer.
Released in 1993, Clerks was Smith’s debut feature which followed a day in the lives of convenience store employees in New Jersey. Apart from launching Smith’s career, Clerks set the groundwork for his “View Askewniverse” films and introduced two of his most iconic characters, Jay and Silent Bob, played by Smith and Mewes, who will reprise these roles for Clerks III. A sequel, Clerks II, was released in 2006.
As for the third film, the story will focus on Dante Hicks (O’Halloran) and his best friend Randal Graves (Anderson). After suffering a near-fatal heart attack, Graves decides to make a movie about their lives working at the Quick Stop, which was inspired by Smith’s real-life experience in 2018. Returning cast members include Marilyn Ghigliotti as Veronica Loughran, Trevor Fehrman as Elias Grover and Rosario Dawson as Becky Scott.
In August 2021, Smith called Clerks III a ” bizarre return to form,” saying that Clerks was “very autobiographical,” while Clerks II was “completely fabricated, right down to the fact that I never even worked in fast food.” However, this won’t be the case for Clerks III. “The film is predicated on the idea that Randal survives a heart attack, a massive heart attack, quite like I did, and then winds up, you know, deciding that he’s wasted his life,” Smith said. “…We take Randal, a motherfucker who wears cynicism on his sleeve, and we turn him into a dreamer.”
Clerks III does not yet have a release date.
Source: Instagram