Kevin Smith announces Clerks III

Link: http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/clerks/23758/kevin-smith-announces-clerks-3

This is kinda crazy news, and I wanted to share it with Giant Bomb because I know some of you guys have to at least have opinions on Kevin Smith, love him or hate him. Personally, I think Clerks is one of the greatest movies ever made, Clerks II is a sequel that shits over everything that made the original any good, whilst somehow being decent in the process, and fills me with equal parts humour and complete rage.

So yeah, I think Clerks III is a terrible idea. I wanted Kevin Smith's final film to be a beautiful resurrection, a restoration to his former glory before he bowed out, after making a ton of garbage in the last decade. With Clerks III, the chips are stacked against him in my eyes, but I know many are extremely excited by this news.

I'm just gonna go watch Clerks again.

EDIT: For the benefit of all the people who didn't click on the link, commenting about the hockey film, Hit Somebody is no longer a film. It is a 6 part, hour long TV Miniseries, leaving Clerks III to be his final movie.

I think it'll be good.

I don't have high hopes for it.

Dear Lord... Kevin Smith should just tour around giving lectures, he is amazingly entertaining as a speaker (proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgYhLIThTvk) unfortunately his movies have been dogshit for the longest time.

Clerks and Mallrats are both still awesome, but that's about it

No no no! Why does he think this is a good idea? Just do your podcasts, speak on tours, or make a great romantic comedy. But NOT another Clerks!

I've liked most of his films. He's kinda got to the point where he's just making movies for himself and his fans. Luckily I'm one of them.

@Tylea002: I'm with ya 100% there. Clerks 1, gold. Clerks 2, nowhere near as awesome as the first. Smith has fallen from grace in my eyes. I want another Chasing Amy.

Dear Lord... Kevin Smith should just tour around giving lectures, he is amazingly entertaining as a speaker (proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgYhLIThTvk) unfortunately his movies have been dogshit for the longest time.

Clerks and Mallrats are both still awesome, but that's about it

Ugh. I can't stand Kevin Smith man. The guy just upsets me.

don't you mean cl3rks?

@Rafaelfc said:

Dear Lord... Kevin Smith should just tour around giving lectures, he is amazingly entertaining as a speaker (proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgYhLIThTvk) unfortunately his movies have been dogshit for the longest time.

Clerks and Mallrats are both still awesome, but that's about it

Dogma?

Chasing Amy?

He has matured in a sense as a director. He is making more or less generic movies for larger audiences. Zach and Miri make a Porno is prime example. The Jersey stuff is over more or less.

Clerks 2 ended with closure, I see Clerks 3 adding in Kids or something. He likes to market to his kids, he is a family man.

@Hunkulese said:

@Rafaelfc

Dear Lord... Kevin Smith should just tour around giving lectures, he is amazingly entertaining as a speaker (proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgYhLIThTvk) unfortunately his movies have been dogshit for the longest time.

Clerks and Mallrats are both still awesome, but that's about it

Meh. Mallrats was probably the worst of his "good" movies. Everything up to and including Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back was pretty decent. His best movie was probably Dogma but most people seem to forget about it.

I love Dogma, but Mallrats is better than Jay and Silent Bob. JASB has some pretty pretty terrible bits, like the girls, the love story and all that, and then it's mixed in with some really funny bits, Ben Affleck is amazing, it has some good callbacks, but I'd still say Mallrats is a way better film.

Dogma's my second favourite after Clerks, though.

Clerks is excellent. Clerks 2 is Zero-Star-bad. I'll watch it, but I'm not excited for it.

@Subject2Change said:

@Rafaelfc said:

Dear Lord... Kevin Smith should just tour around giving lectures, he is amazingly entertaining as a speaker (proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgYhLIThTvk) unfortunately his movies have been dogshit for the longest time.

Clerks and Mallrats are both still awesome, but that's about it

Dogma?

Chasing Amy?

He has matured in a sense as a director. He is making more or less generic movies for larger audiences. Zach and Miri make a Porno is prime example. The Jersey stuff is over more or less.

Clerks 2 ended with closure, I see Clerks 3 adding in Kids or something. He likes to market to his kids, he is a family man.

Dogma is OK, Alan Rickman is the best thing about it (as with most things Alan Rickman does)

Chasing Amy is a weird ass movie, it has interesting ideas, but overall is pretty bland.

I won't even comment on J&SBSB, jeez what a terrible terrible film.

But even if we count J&SBSB as his last decent flick, that's what 11 years ago? All his films since then have been nigh-unwatchable.

@Animasta said:

don't you mean cl3rks?

*shudders*

@Animasta said:

don't you mean cl3rks?

I love you.

I'll take more Kevin Smith any way I can get it.

I thought he was "retiring" after Hit Somebody.

Either way, Kevin Smith struggling to stay relevant. What else is new?

@iAmJohn: He justifies it as Hit Somebody is now a mini-series rather than a film, and Clerks III becomes his final film instead.

YOU WANT TO PODCAST IVE GOT A SMODCAST

@Shaunage said:

Clerks is excellent. Clerks 2 is Zero-Star-bad. I'll watch it, but I'm not excited for it.

You realize he gets paid whether you're excited or not, right?

It's funny, after the Jay and Silent Bob movie he was like "I want to move on and make stuff outside this universe" and then that didn't pan out so well so he keeps going back to the well with Clerks. 
 
It's not that I mind it, it's that it's strange he would say he wont then keep going back to it. I guess maybe he's not so great at making anything else, I don't know.  
 
I never saw Clerks 2, though. I have no idea if this would work or not. A lot of the actors are in their mid 30s or older now. I'm not sure if the idea still works or not- I always saw clerks as the cynical view of the world you have in your 20s- they should have evolved by now.  
 
Again, though, I never saw Clerks 2 so I have no idea how that's working out. It's not really something I wanted out of Kevin Smith movies in general though.

This is really weird. He talks on Smodcast ALL THE TIME about how this next film is his last one, and he's done making movies,  and I'm pretty sure he's joked before about "what, you wanna see CLERKS 3? No, nobody wants to see that."
 
Yeah this is really the opposite of what he's bin talkin about. Oh also I don't really like his movies that much, but Smodcast is super fun.

How he still has a career amazes me.

@Undeadpool said:

@Shaunage said:

Clerks is excellent. Clerks 2 is Zero-Star-bad. I'll watch it, but I'm not excited for it.

You realize he gets paid whether you're excited or not, right?

I have no idea why that matters...

@iAmJohn: How is he "struggling to stay relevant?" If you've ever listened to any of his stuff post Zack and Miri, it's pretty clear that the dude doesn't care about relevancy. He wants to make what he wants to make, hollywood or anyone else be damned. His podcasts are all successful, and he is constantly on speaking tours. Being "relevant" sounds like, and is, the least of his worries.

He is just... He's out of things to say. It's why he focuses on his youth so much on Smodcast, because he's out of relevant experiences that he needs to share. Clerks was about a point in his life, and Clerks 2 was a _stretch_ because he's trying to step back into something that doesn't fit him anymore (har). What could Clerks 3 possibly be about, from a writer-director with no more ideas?

He's there with Cameron Crowe, a writer-director who used to have things to say and is out of them now. They have more experience now, but no inspiration other than "gotta work, I guess?"

I thought he was done with making movies after the hockey one.

Yesh.

@CosmicBatman: Hit Somebody is no longer a movie, I updated the first post!

@Brodehouse: YOU ARE BANG ON AND I AGREE WITH EVERYTHING YOU SAY. He's a man who became a hollywood director, now so removed from the reality from which was ingrained in his first few films, that of course he transitioned to making more studio style flicks, because that's what he knows. The man who made Clerks would never have made, say, Zack and Miri, and would have been actively insulted by their existence. (Actually stole that brilliant line from litrock, but that's by the by, he's bang on).

Son of a bitch! I thought he retired after Red State?! He finally made a mature, serious film and then he goes and starts making a bunch of crap again? What the hell?

@CornBREDX: Clerks 2 is pretty much about that transition. In his 20's he made Clerks and in his 30's he made Clerks 2. The film is basically the story of his life. He tried to move away from what he knew, tried to expand his horizons but he just found himself in, relatively, the same position.

Where Clerks was about Dantes inability to either settle with his life or try to improve it, Clerks 2 is about how after all these years he still can't decide whether to improve or settle.

Clerks 2 is worth it, just for Rosario.

I like a bunch of Kevin Smith movies, but I don't really care for either Clerks, although the second does have a pretty accurate description of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

@Tylea002 said:

@Animasta said:

don't you mean cl3rks?

I love you.

Hey great, another movie full of fart jokes for pre-teens.

@LarcenousLaugh said:

@iAmJohn: How is he "struggling to stay relevant?" If you've ever listened to any of his stuff post Zack and Miri, it's pretty clear that the dude doesn't care about relevancy. He wants to make what he wants to make, hollywood or anyone else be damned. His podcasts are all successful, and he is constantly on speaking tours. Being "relevant" sounds like, and is, the least of his worries.

Funny how that's his angle now. I remember when Zack and Miri Make a Porno was being angled as the film that was going to make him the next Judd Apatow and be his big 40 Year Old Virgin style hit. And then it wasn't. Or how Cop Out was going to be him branching out as a director-for-hire, and then that tanked. And then Red State was going to be his big foray out of comedy into genre film, and again, no one cared.

Clerks is one of those seminal, life-defining films for me that gives the guy a free pass forever, but let's not pretend like Smith is totally comfortable in his skin. He's always tried to be bigger than he is, ever since Mallrats. And almost every single time he's failed, and the very few times he's been able to get anywhere near the mainstream acceptance he so desperately desires is when he's gone back to the Askewniverse well he kept trying to put a bullet in. You're right, his niche audience serves him well as it always has, but it doesn't make him any less obviously trying to be bigger than that, and he just keeps trying and trying in spite of how obviously no one is interested. Clerks 3 is just another step in that (as Clerks has always been since the cartoon), since it's the one property he still has that anyone outside his dwindling fanbase will pay attention to.

And I say this as someone who really likes Clerks 2, as messy as it is.

I used to really like Kevin Smith's movies. But after he failed to grow as a director, I started to lose interest. He thinks it's FUNNY that he's a director that knows his craft so little that he doesn't know anything about cameras and is so bad at anything other than line direction. It's disappointing that he never thought to improve himself. His humor got more and more infantile and masturbatory, and though he always cracks jokes at himself, it's just a defense mechanism to hide his big ego. He jokes about how terrible Jersey Girl and Cop Out are, but rarely take any responsibility for them, and in the case of Jersey Girl, occasionally slips up and blames other people for the films failure. He had a crisis when Zack and Miri failed, a film I was interested in that attempted to have the heart and humor of 40 Year-old Virgin and Knocked Up but failed on both accounts. Then he became a huge stoner, which has effected his entertainment value for the worse, despite what he insists. His podcasts were good, but then he began doing so many of them that he got over-exposed; I was hearing the same stories he's been telling for years multiple times a week (a problem I had with Adam Carolla's daily podcast too), and that internet radio station and now his internet television station are just pointless extensions of those. Despite what he says, he doesn't this stuff because it's more "real" and he can "connect with his audience more", it's because it takes a lot less effort, and there's really no way he can "fail" like his last few movies have. He's constantly coming up with new ideas and dropping them as soon as he loses interest and expanding into more pointless fields. Does anyone really want a Kevin Smith version of Angry Birds on their iPhone? I'm interested in seeing Clerks III, but if it's a similar quality to his last few ventures, I hope it's the last thing he does.

Basically, what @iAmJohn said.

I...guess....

Clerks 3 makes sense as Kevin Smiths last film, I just don't think I really want to see it.

I like his movies and his talks, but I don't know if this has to exist.

Anyone who still thinks Kevin Smith is funny is not yet an adult.

@Tylea002: if you listen to any of his SmodCo podcasts, he basically announced that almost a year ago, but he originally wanted it to became a play after he saw the success of The Book of Mormon.

As for KevSmith, I like him a lot, he, if nothing else, inspires me, and shows that an overweight nerd CAN do something awesome and become famous

Dear Santa,

Please make Kevin Smith go away. Or get kicked off another flight for weighting too much.

-Dane

i thought he said countless times Clerks 3 would be a broadway musical, nota movie. Still cool tho, the original jersey trilogy (Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma and J&SB Strike Back) are still among my favorite comedies ever. Clerks 2 was awful no matter how much of a crush I have on rosario, but im still excited.

I never liked Kevin Smith.

Not a Kevin Smith fan at this point, but Clerks II was solid so I'll at least give it a chance. Assuming it'll be better than the Jay & Silent Bob & Mallrats movies, anyway, since those movies were fucking garbage in hindsight. I'll chalk my enjoyment of them up to youthful ignorance.

@Rafaelfc said:

Dear Lord... Kevin Smith should just tour around giving lectures, he is amazingly entertaining as a speaker (proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgYhLIThTvk) unfortunately his movies have been dogshit for the longest time.

Clerks and Mallrats are both still awesome, but that's about it

Yep I LOVE smodnation and all the fine podcasting. However on the film front I like Clerks, Mallrats, and Dogma. That's all. Red State was okay. Even he admits constantly that Cop Out and Jersey Girl were flops. I was hoping his next announcement would be Hit Somebody his hockey movie his he's been kicking around, but it's a tv series?? I don't know that I want or need to see another Clerks. I thought Clerks 2 was enough.

@KaneRobot said:

Not a Kevin Smith fan at this point, but Clerks II was solid so I'll at least give it a chance. Assuming it'll be better than the Jay & Silent Bob & Mallrats movies, anyway, since those movies were fucking garbage in hindsight. I'll chalk my enjoyment of them up to youthful ignorance.

Wait you thought Clerks 2 was "solid" but those other two movies were garbage?

Anyway I like Kevin Smith and his movies to a degree. I know what I'm getting out of them when I sit down to watch one. Outside of Clerks and Dogma none of them are great but most of them are still enjoyable. Even some of his more recent ones like Red State and Zack and Miri I found my self enjoying them for what they are. That said zero interest in clerks 3.

@devilzrule27 said:

@KaneRobot said:

Not a Kevin Smith fan at this point, but Clerks II was solid so I'll at least give it a chance. Assuming it'll be better than the Jay & Silent Bob & Mallrats movies, anyway, since those movies were fucking garbage in hindsight. I'll chalk my enjoyment of them up to youthful ignorance.

Wait you thought Clerks 2 was "solid" but those other two movies were garbage?

Honestly, I'd say it's fair. I think Clerks 2 is probably his best post-Clerks film; it's the closest he's gotten to balancing that twentysomething fuck you attitude of Clerks and the maudlin Hollywood sentimentality he's gone for in all of his other films. Mallrats and Chasing Amy are solid; Dogma is sharp in concept and falls apart in execution; J&SBSB is straight up not fucking funny; Jersey Girl is pathetically saccharine and toothless; Zack and Miri was okay but tried too hard to be likable; and I couldn't even bring myself to bother with Red State.

@Tylea002 said:

@Undeadpool said:

@Shaunage said:

Clerks is excellent. Clerks 2 is Zero-Star-bad. I'll watch it, but I'm not excited for it.

You realize he gets paid whether you're excited or not, right?

I have no idea why that matters...

Because I don't understand why people go to something KNOWING it's bad and KNOWING they're going to hate it, plunk down money for it, and then wonder, either aloud or on a forum, how movies they hate keep getting made. It happened with Transformers, it happened with the Star Wars Prequels/Blu-Rays, it happens a LOT.

I really liked Clerks 2. I suspect I will like this too.