Kevin Smith has been warbling on about retiring from filmmaking for quite some time now with hockey drama Hit Somebody scheduled as his last film as director. Instead, he wants to concentrate on helping aspiring filmmakers to get their projects off the ground – a noble cause if ever there was one. But, I hear you cry, what about Clerks III? Well, you might just need to make a trip to the theatre to see that as Smith has said that their futures might just be on stage
Unfortunately, it’s not a musical show tunes version of the last two films, incredibly as that would be. Rather, Smith mentioned the idea of a Broadway production of Clerks III at a book signing and Entertainment Weekly grilled him about the details.
It’s still in the embryonic stages of development at the moment with Smith gathering opinions from the returning cast members first
“Jeff (Anderson, who plays Randal) was the first person I reached out to. I sent him an email after I’d seen Alan Rickman in Seminar in February: ‘You’re the first person I’m gonna tell… Clerks III is gonna be a play on Broadway. We’ll do a six-month run and sell out the entirety in advance. You up for six shows a week, sir? Live?’ To which Jeff responded, ‘Better lay off the weed, sir.’
“I told Jason (Mewes), just before we went onstage to do our Jay & Silent Bob Get Old live podcast in London. He asked if he could be his own understudy. I haven’t spoken to Brian (O’Halloran, Dante) yet, but he’s the only one of us with actual theatrical training, so this will be right up his alley. I know I’ll need Trevor (Fehrman) as well, because Elias from Clerks II will feature prominently. Rosario Dawson’s Becky would feature in a pre-recorded bit.”
Sounds like bad news if you live outside the US doesn’t it? Well, fear not as Smith is planning on fixing that, “I’ll make it as painless as I can: a six-month run that culminates with a one-night performance we broadcast into movie theatres, like we did with Live From Behind a few months back. So ultimately, anyone who can’t make it to Broadway to see the show can go to the movie theater the night we stream the production and see if for about 20 bucks. The hardest part for me won’t be making it happen; the hardest part at this point, for me, will be standing on a stage for two hours and not talking.”
2014 is the expected date of arrival if it gets off the ground. The idea’s certainly interesting – guess we’ll have to wait and see. Meanwhile Entertainment Weekly have more details…
