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Kevin Smith broke into Hollywood with his iconic indie comedy, Clerks, back in 1994. Almost thirty years later, the indie icon brought audiences back to the iconic Quick Stop Convenience Store with Clerks III, which will find a new streaming home on Nov. 21.

Clerks III will be available to stream on Peacock starting Nov. 21. Released almost thirty years after Clerks, the third film once again centers around Randal and Dante, but this time life gets a tad more serious for the owners of the iconic Quick Stop. After suffering a heart attack, Randal and Dante finally pursue their dreams of making a film together, choosing to shoot it in black and white and setting it at the Quick Stop Convenience Store, mirroring the real-life production of the first film. Pulling from the real-life medical scare the writer-director faced back in 2018, Clerks III feels like an emotional retrospective of Smith's entire career,...

Just because they serve you... doesn't mean they like you.

Currently, Clerks is streaming for free on Pluto TV. The film, which was the first movie directed by Kevin Smith, was originally released in 1994. Due to its low budget, the film was shot in black and white and primarily takes place in and around a real-life convenience store in New Jersey. It is also the first movie to introduced Smith as Silent Bob alongside Jason Mewes as Jay, launching what would come to be known as the View Askewniverse.

Related Kevin Smiths Clerks: The Animated Series Deserves a Reboot

Clerks: The Animated Series was never given a fair shake during its initial run, but it would undeniably make a perfect fit in the age of streaming.

While the film came early in Smith's career and was hindered by a low budget, it was nevertheless a hit due to its critical acclaim.

Stars: Brian O’Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Jason Mewes, Trevor Fehrman, Rosario Dawson, Kevin Smith, Marilyn Ghigliotti, Austin Zajur | Written and Directed by Kevin Smith

Following a massive heart attack, Randal enlists his friends and fellow clerks Dante, Elias, Jay, and Silent Bob to make a movie immortalizing his life at the convenience store that started it all.

Kevin Smith and his cohorts are back for a third round at the Quick Stop and like his previous Clerks movies, this three-quel calls upon Smith’s own life experiences – namely his well-publicised heart attack – to inform the plot. However Clerks 3 is also a huge love letter to Smith’s films and his fans…

A love letter to Smith’s oeuvre in so much as he homages scenes, lines and characters from a myriad of his previous works. The cast of characters he plucked from obscurity in New Jersey all those years ago returning...

One of the weirdest things about getting older are those moments when you look around and suddenly realize everybody else looks ancient too; your family, friends, and those celebrities and movie stars you grew up watching and assumed would stay young forever.

My brain still struggles to compute the fact that Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp are both almost 60. Pitt still looks great; I have no data to support this, but I'm sure millions of middle-aged men were inspired to renew their gym membership after he took his shirt off in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood." On the flip side, Depp now looks like a guy who lives on a canal boat with several cats.

Belated remakes and reboots can show their age, too. "Trainspotting" was the acerbic voice of a restless generation, while the cringey retread of the "Choose Life" speech in the sequel was just like Grandpa Simpson yelling at clouds.

Whatever criticisms might be lobbed at Clerks III — most of them valid — it is undeniably the film Kevin Smith set out to make. The director’s third visit to the Quick Stop is part reunion, part remake, part midlife crisis, and only partly funny. But there’s also a sincerity that elevates it and a vulnerability that makes it unique from the rest of his work. It’s Smith’s best film in over a decade, make of that what you will.

Smith wrote the script for this trilogy-capper after suffering a near-fatal heart attack several years back and once again pulls from real life for this latest installment, which finds convenience store owners Dante (Brian O’Halloran) and Randal (Jeff Anderson) making a movie about their life experiences after Randal suffers his own “widow-maker.”

There’s a strong case to be made that this is a two-hour version of a snake eating its own tail,...

Smith’s geeky comedy is as lightweight as ever, but it retains its charm in the unlikely franchise’s third outing

Having launched his wobbly, weird career with the ultra-low-budget Clerks in 1994, Kevin Smith comes back full circle with a third bite at the cherry, a more lushly produced package than the trilogy’s originator but with the same old scrappy, scattershot mix of gags about adolescent genitalia and bodily fluids, geeky pop-culture references, and natural comic timing. Like the junk food that the central characters sell in their convenience store, it’s a strangely moreish brew that you enjoy but feel faintly guilty about consuming, like nachos with cheese-flavoured sauce or a blue slushy ice drink.

Smith has dabbled in making more conventional features, done standup comedy, podcasting and owned a bricks-and-mortar comic book store, but he knows that the Clerks franchise will always be his legacy. That means...

Clerks III Review — Clerks III (2022) Film Review, a movie written and directed by Kevin Smith and starring Brian O’Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Trevor Fehrman, Rosario Dawson, Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes, Marilyn Ghigliotti, Austin Zajur, Lisa Hampton, Scott Schiaffo, Dave Ferrier, Aj Wilkerson, Ben Affleck, Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Justin Long and [...]

Continue reading: Film Review: Clerks III (2022): Kevin Smith Ends a Trilogy with Heartfelt Sincerity and Many Laugh-Out-Loud Funny Scenes...

When costume designer Allison Pearce signed on for “Clerks III,” everything she needed to know on the research front was there in black and white — literally.

“I knew going in this would be a very research-heavy project,” she recalled. “In ‘Clerks III,’ there’s this portion of the script where there is a movie-within-a-movie. It’s all realizing things that happened in [‘Clerks’], so we recreated it. All of it was based on this research I did and screenshots of a VHS tape we were looking at.”

The final chapter in writer-director Kevin Smith’s trilogy following the low-stakes retail misadventures of Dante (Brian O’Halloran) and Randal (Jeff Anderson) and the two well-traveled pot dealers who loiter outside their workplaces is the first time Pearce and the filmmaker have collaborated. To get a comprehensive grasp on the clothing in Smith’s catalog, she rewatched every single entry in his View Askewniverse and beyond.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. That may be the overriding theme of Clerks III, the third, and perhaps final, entry in writer-director Kevin Smith’s Quick Stop convenience story trilogy that has been the anchor for nearly his entire canon of films.

While certain life-shaking events have taken place in the 16 years since Smith made Clerks II—events which we won’t reveal here—the new movie gets the most mileage out of familiar situations and characters in the orbit of the Quick Stop, the fictional New Jersey store based on Smith’s own early work history at a convenience store before he became a filmmaker.

Yet while the film retains much of the often coarse, crude humor of many of Smith’s earlier View Askewniverse movies, and while his filmmaking style still usually hinges on long, static shots of people just standing around and talking,...

Brian OÕHalloran as Dante and Jeff Anderson as Randal in Clerks III. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Lionsgate

Alright you slackers, Labor Day’s in the rearview mirror. Time to “hit the bricks” and get back to work. If your first thought is “Aw, no”, “Ugh!”, or…something we can’t repeat here, then this film might resonate with you. At least that’s what a New Jersey-born filmmaker hopes, since that notion “put him on the map” nearly thirty years ago. And if your earlier response included the “salty talk”, then all the better. Hard to imagine that in 1994 Kevin Smith fashioned a script of his retail drudgery and unleashed Clerks on the world. Soon he was the darling of TV talk shows, getting offers from the major studios, and even flexed his “acting chops” (plus the grungy lil’ black and white was another jewel in the “indie cred crown” of Miramax Studios…...

For die-hards who have been there from the beginning, it can be frustrating to watch the evolution of a filmmaker’s work as they branch out and try their hand at different genres with various budget levels and under fluctuating circumstances. While I can’t say I’m old enough to have been there for the very start, like many heterosexual males with filmmaking aspirations, I always looked up to Kevin Smith since first discovering Clerks on VHS from my local video store. That picture was infused with a certain Gen X authenticity that perhaps came with growing up on the Jersey shore. The funny thing about folks that grew up in Jersey––and Springsteen has said, roughly, the same thing––is we just don’t know how great and interesting of a state it truly is until you’re away from it. In this respect, Smith has come full circle and come home again.

Stars: Brian O’Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Jason Mewes, Trevor Fehrman, Rosario Dawson, Kevin Smith, Marilyn Ghigliotti, Austin Zajur | Written and Directed by Kevin Smith

Following a massive heart attack, Randal enlists his friends and fellow clerks Dante, Elias, Jay, and Silent Bob to make a movie immortalizing his life at the convenience store that started it all.

Kevin Smith and his cohorts are back for a third round at the Quick Stop and like his previous Clerks movies, this three-quel calls upon Smith’s own life experiences – namely his well-publicised heart attack – to inform the plot. However Clerks 3 is also a huge love letter to Smith’s films and his fans…

A love letter to Smith’s oeuvre in so much as he homages scenes, lines and characters from a myriad of his previous works. The cast of characters he plucked from obscurity in New Jersey all those years ago returning...

(from left) Randal (Jeff Anderson) and Dante (Brian O’Halloran) in Kevin Smith’s Clerks III. Photo: Lionsgate There’s a watchable 90-minute movie hidden in the almost two-hour runtime of Clerks III. It’s too bad writer-director Kevin Smith doesn’t possess the clarity of vision he once had to...

In Kevin Smith’s debut feature “Clerks,” way back in 1994, the indie filmmaker told a story of two workaday twentysomethings whose lives were so tragically limited that they not only revolved around retail work, but when the characters did consider life’s big questions and mysteries, their lack of personal experience also left them searching for deeper meaning in pop culture ephemera like “Star Wars.”

Smith was a young filmmaker, naive cinematically but painfully, sometimes embarrassingly earnest in his commitment to capturing the lives of foul-mouthed losers who fill their days with crass sexual humor and existential malaise. Nearly 30 years later — and 16 years after “Clerks II” found his title characters trapped in the same old rut — he’s back with “Clerks III,” a film which doesn’t plumb popular culture for the meaning of life. Instead, it searches for that depth within the original “Clerks” and Smith’s own life story.

The phrase “this one’s for the fans” is usually delivered from a defensive posture. But in the case of “Clerks III,” it’s practically a statement of purpose. Now nearly three decades removed from the microbudget indie that made him one of the most unlikely major auteurs of the 1990s, writer-director-podcaster Kevin Smith has once again returned to the New Jersey Quick Stop where he first staked his claim as a filmmaker, bringing his now-fiftysomething slacker heroes back to confront the listlessness of middle age. But the real focus of “Clerks III” is not really Randal and Dante at all, but rather the film “Clerks” itself, and Smith aims this third installment straight at his diminished but still rabid fanbase, for whom the film remains a touchstone.

After a lively opening sequence scored to My Chemical Romance’s “Welcome to the Black Parade” – Jersey pride is on full display...

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Like an ouroboros that has tired of sucking his own tail and moved on to another body part, Kevin Smith’s Clerks III is about as pure an exercise in self-referential self-gratification as you get on a movie screen, and if your understandable response is, “who the hell asked for this,” well, you’re just not paying attention.

More entrepreneur and raconteur than filmmaker (an assessment he might agree with), Smith knows he has enough loyal followers to justify multiple returns to nearly every well he has dug, at least those related to his “View Askewniverse.” But while some of his many spinoffs and sequels have smelled of near-desperation and little more, this one’s also personal: Inspired by the heart attack that nearly killed him in 2018, it’s a story about valuing those you love and trying to keep living until you’re dead.

This script wasn’t even supposed to be here today! Or any day, really. At the premiere of Clerks III, writer, director and Southwest Airlines extra baggage Kevin Smith offered some details about how the movie almost turned out.

In what Kevin Smith called “a movie about dealing with grief”, the original Clerks III script opened during Hurricane Sandy, which pummeled Smith’s home state of New Jersey (and others) in 2012.

“Dante and Randal were locked in a jail because the original version of Clerks III was the opening of Jay and Silent Bob Reboot where the cops come in and bust Jay and Silent Bob.”

Once the gang is released from prison for safety reasons, they find their beloved Quick Stop has been destroyed. To cope, Randal goes to the movies but the picture he wants to see hasn’t been released yet, prompting him to “[build] a lean-to version of Quick Stop,...

(Welcome to ...And More, our no-frills, zero B.S. guide to when and where you can watch upcoming movies and shows, and everything else you could possibly stand to know.)

Nearly 30 years after its cinematic debut, I assure you, the Quick Stop is open once again thanks to "Clerks III." After trying to manifest this project in a number of different ways since the release of the second film in 2006, fan-favorite filmmaker Kevin Smith is finally presenting the third chapter in Dante Hicks and Randal Graves' story in a theater near you. And interestingly enough, this movie brings the New Jersey native all the way back to his first chapter as the characters that kickstarted his career back in the early '90s are now making their own movie about working in a convenience store.

To avoid the real tragedy of showing up at the theater when you're not even supposed to be there today,...

Previous | Image 1 of 5 | NextWriter/Director Kevin Smith is Silent Bob in ‘Clerks III.’

Chicago – “They’re Bringing it Back!” Is the inevitable tagline for “Clerks III,” the highly anticipated final (?) chapter of Kevin Smith’s Clerks universe of films. The main classic cast appeared at Fan Expo Chicago last weekend, and photographer Joe Arce of HollywoodChicago.com captured the Exclusive Portraits. “Clerks III” is set to release on September 13th, 2022.

The “Clerks” saga began in 1994, when a comic book/movie mad indie filmmaker named Kevin Smith made a black and white film for 27K, with friends in his native New Jersey. The characters became icons as the film’s cult status grew, and cast member Jason Mewes and Smith expanded their characters Jay and Silent Bob into the filmmaker’s “View Askew” universe with “Mallrats,” “Chasing Amy,” “Dogma,” various Jay & Silent Bob adventures and of course, “Clerks 2.” The third Clerks...

Clerks III Trailer — Kevin Smith‘s Clerks III (2022) movie trailer has been released by Lionsgate. The Clerks III trailer stars Brian O’Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Marilyn Ghigliotti, Rosario Dawson, Trevor Fehrman, Jason Mewes, and Kevin Smith. Crew Kevin Smith wrote the screenplay for Clerks III. “It’s produced by Liz Destro, Jordan Monsanto, Kevin Smith.” Poster Clerks [...]

Continue reading: Clerks III (2022) Movie Trailer: Dante & Randal Return in Kevin Smith’s Comedy Film...

Lionsgate has debuted a new trailer for the highly anticipated third instalment of ‘Clerks.’

Following a massive heart attack, Randal enlists his friends and fellow clerks Dante, Elias, Jay, and Silent Bob to make a movie immortalizing his life at the convenience store that started it all.

Written and directed by Kevin Smith, the film stars Brian O’Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Trevor Fehrman, Austin Zajur, Jason Mewes, Rosario Dawson, and Kevin Smith.

Also in trailers – An all-star cast line up in first look trailer for ‘Amsterdam’

Lionsgate, in partnership with Fathom Events, will be releasing Clerks III exclusively in US theatres on September 13th and 15th.

The post Trailer drops for ‘Clerks III’ appeared first on HeyUGuys.

"Everything in the script is something either me, or someone I know, said." The boys are back... again! For a third time! Lionsgate has revealed the first official trailer for Kevin Smith's Clerks III, another sequel to his iconic B&w Clerks indie film that premiered at Sundance in 1994. Kevin Smith writes and directs, again, and brings back the classic cast for one more adventure: Brian O'Halloran as Dante Hicks and Jeff Anderson as Randal Graves, the Quick Stop store clerks, return with a cast including Marilyn Ghigliotti, Rosario Dawson, and Trevor Fehrman. Plus of course Jason Mewes as Jay & Kevin Smith as Silent Bob. Another meta story from Ks: after surviving a heart attack, Randal decides to make a movie with Dante about their lives at the Quick Stop convenience store. Some of you may have forgotten that Clerks II was actually pretty good, and this looks like it will be harmless fun.

Click here to read the full article.

A massive heart attack has Randal deciding to make a movie about his life working at the Quick Stop convenience store, as fans got a sneak peek when the official trailer for Kevin Smith’s Clerks 3 dropped Wednesday.

As Lionsgate and Fathom Events get set to bring the sequel to theaters for two nights only, on Sept. 13 and 15, the trailer sees Randal, played by Jeff Anderson, tap fellow clerks Dante, Elias, Jay and Silent Bob, played by Smith, to make a movie immortalizing his life at the convenience store that started it all.

In February 2018, Smith tweeted a selfie from a hospital bed after telling his fans that he had survived a “massive” heart attack. The Clerks director added: “If I hadn’t canceled show 2 to go to the hospital, I would’ve died tonight. But for now, I’m still above ground!

Twenty-eight years since “Clerks” redefined the buddy comedy in 1994, Kevin Smith is finally finishing out his trilogy.

The trailer for “Clerks 3” officially debuted ahead of a special two-night only theatrical run thanks to Fathom Events and Lionsgate. The third film will premiere September 13 and 15 in more than 700 U.S. movie theaters at 7 p.m. local time both nights with an exclusive look behind the scenes with director Smith and the cast. Smith will also take the latest installment of the franchise on a “Clerks III Convenience Tour” roadshow throughout September and October, starting in New Jersey on September 4.

“Clerks 3” picks up with Randal (Jeff Anderson) reconsidering his life’s purpose after surviving a heart attack. Randal sets out to make a movie about his life working at the Quick Stop convenience store, and auditions a slew of actors ranging from Ben Affleck to Fred Armisen and Sarah Michelle Gellar to star in the meta-comedy.

“Clerks III” is finally coming to the big screen, 28 years after the original film latched onto the hearts of millions.

The third installment to Kevin Smith’s cult classic film series has released its first trailer from Lionsgate, teasing the newest chapter to Smith’s “View Askewniverse.”

“Clerks III” is set to follow Randal, played by Jeff Anderson, after he suffers a life-threatening heart attack. With the help of Dante, Elias, Becky, Jay and Silent Bob, Randal sets out to make a movie about the convenience store that started it all. As always, the film is sure to mirror much of Smith’s real life. In fact, Smith himself nearly lost his life in February of 2018 after suffering a heart attack on stage in Glendale, Calif.

The new installment will see most of the original cast return, including Anderson, Brian O’Halloran and Jason Mewes. Rosario Dawson and Trevor Fehrman are...

The slacker heroes of Kevin Smith’s seminal comedy “Clerks” are reuniting once more for “Clerks III” – and this time, they’re growing up and not sitting around waiting for something to happen. That’s right: Instead of just watching movies, they’re going to make their own.

That’s the very “meta” premise of Smith’s “Clerks III,” which Smith first told TheWrap years ago was inspired by his heart attack. It now sees Randal (Jeff Anderson) suffer his own heart attack, which galvanizes him to enlist Dante (Brian O’Halloran) and his other buddies to make a movie about what it’s like working in a convenience store and hanging out with guys like Jay and Silent Bob who forever loiter outside.

“Jay and Silent Bob are like C3PO and R2D2. They’ve been here since the first movie, which is the last time they were cool.

From celebrity Q&As to industry, cosplay, gaming, anime and entertaining, informative sessions from all areas of pop culture, Fan Expo St. Louis presents its collection of nearly 150 programing panels and meetups during the event, Friday through Sunday, May 13-15 at America’s Center. There’s truly something for every fan and every taste every hour of the show into the evening throughout all three days of the convention, right until Sunday’s 5 p.m. finish.

Fan Expo St. Louis celebrity guests like William Shatner (“Star Trek”), Guardians of the Galaxy’s Michael Rooker, the “Smallville” trio of Tom Welling, Michael Rosenbaum and Kristin Kreuk, “The Mandalorian” and Rocky standout Carl Weathers, “Clerks” cast members Brian O’Halloran, Jeff Anderson and Trevor Fehrman, “Sons of Anarchy” trio of Ron Perlman, Theo Rossi and Ryan Hurst and others will conduct interactive sessions with fans, headlining the thorough slate.

On the comics front,...

That's a wrap on Clerks III. Over the past month, Kevin Smith gathered the old gang from Clerks to shoot the third installment of the trilogy, culminating with a final shoot on Aug. 31. Revealing that the sequel has officially wrapped filming, Smith posted a final photo from the set providing another sneak peek at the returns of Dante, Randal, and Jay & Silent Bob. It's going to be hard for any fan of the original movie not to get excited once seeing the image.

Kevin Smith has previously released images of Dante (Brian O'Halloran) and Randal (Jeff Anderson) in their new Quick Stop uniforms. The new photo brings another look at the pair behind the counter joined by Jay Mewes and Smith as Jay and Silent Bob. Fans will also notice plenty of Easter eggs in that one photo referencing the original, including the return of Chewlie's brand gum. Along with the image,...

Chewlie's gum will be back at the Quick Stop in Kevin Smith's upcoming sequel Clerks III. Written and directed by Smith, the movie is now wrapping up filming after a month-long shoot at the original Quick Stop store in Leonardo, New Jersey. Smith has previously teased his plans to fill Clerks III with Easter eggs and other homages to the original movie which even includes recreating some of the same shots.

Several original characters from Clerks will be appearing in Clerks III, including Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson in the lead roles as Dante Hicks and Randal Graves. In a recent post on Instagram, actor Scott Schiaffo has also teased our first look at the return of the Chewlie's gum salesman seen in the original Clerks. The character, who had a very memorable scene with Dante and his then-girlfriend Veronica (Marilyn Ghigliotti), is apparently still representing Chewlie's in Leonardo after all these years.

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.

Marilyn Ghigliotti has wrapped filming for her return as Veronica in Clerks III. With production now underway in Leonardo, New Jersey, Kevin Smith's third Clerks movie will bring Dante (Brian O'Halloran) and Randal (Jeff Anderson) back to where it all began at the Quick Stop. Smith has also revealed that the sequel will bring back many other fan favorites, including Rosario Dawson reprising her Clerks II role as Dante's wife Becky.

In the original Clerks, Marilyn Ghigliotti co-starred as Veronica, Dante's girlfriend at the time. Their relationship becomes part of a love triangle when Dante's ex Caitlin (the late Lisa Spoonauer) comes back into his life, and by the end, Veronica appears to break up with the Quick Stop clerk. Ghigliotti did not appear in Clerks II as the sequel revealed they did not get back together, and Dante had since gotten married to someone else.

Now, Dante and...

[L-r] – Elias (Trevor Fehrman), Dante (Brian O’Halloran), Becky (Rosario Dawson), and Randal (Jeff Anderson) in the comedy film, Clerks III, a Lionsgate release. Photo courtesy of John Baer.

Lionsgate has debuted this first photo from Clerks III.

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.

Clerks III is currently shooting in Leonardo, New Jersey, at the same locations as the original. Kevin Smith has written the screenplay and will direct, with all major cast members from the first two Clerks films set to reprise their roles: Jeff Anderson as Randal, Brian O’Halloran as Dante, Jay Mewes as Jay, Smith as Silent Bob, and Rosario Dawson as Becky.

The post Lionsgate Reveals First Look Photo Of Rosario Dawson, Jeff Anderson, Brian O’Halloran, Trevor Fehrman From Kevin Smith...

An official first look photo for Clerks III reveals the employees of Quick Stop Groceries in their work uniforms. Written and directed by Smith, the movie has been rolling around in development hell for years after many failed attempts to get production started. Lionsgate recently picked up the sequel and filming is currently underway in New Jersey, making it now official that we'll see the Quick Stop clerks back on the clock on the big screen.

A new Kevin Smith interview with Vanity Fair also includes the first look photo, showing us how the characters will appear in the actual movie. The upcoming sequel will bring back original stars Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson as Dante Hicks and Randal Graves, respectively, with the former likely not even supposed to be there that day. Also returning from Clerks II is Trevor Fehrman as Elias, the formerly-teenage employee who worked with Dante and Randal at Mooby's,...

Kevin Smith has officially kicked off filming of Clerks 3 at the Quick Stop in New Jersey, and to paraphrase Dante Hicks, the cast and crew are supposed to be there today. In 1994, Smith launched his movie career with the highly successful release of the original Clerks. Starring Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson, the hit comedy was shot in the real-life convenience store where Smith worked, following the lives of two Quick Stop clerks.

At the time, Smith probably had no idea what would be in store after the movie's release. Nearly three decades later, he's coming back full circle with the third and likely final installment of the Clerks movie series. On Monday, which happened to be Kevin Smith's 51st birthday, the director posted the first image from day one of shooting, and fans ought to appreciate seeing O'Halloran and Anderson back behind the counter. You can look at the image below.

It's the best birthday ever for Kevin Smith who just kicked off filming on the long-awaited sequel Clerks III. In 1994, Smith launched his movie career with the release of the original Clerks, his directorial debut based on his life as a convenience store clerk. Recently, it was announced that Lionsgate had officially picked up Clerks III with filming slated to start in August. On Aug. 2, which just so happens to be Smith's 51st birthday, filming officially began.

"Grateful Undead: Today is my last day of being a 50 year old," Kevin Smith said on Twitter the day before shooting started. "I turn 51 tomorrow as we start shooting Clerks III - a sequel to a movie I dreamed about making 30 years ago, when I saw Richard Linklater's masterpiece Slacker for the first time on the night on my 21st birthday."

Grateful Undead: Today is my last day of being a 50 year old.

As we've seen in recent days, Clerks III is already on the fast track to production with Kevin Smith doing table reads with the cast ahead of the director's plans to start filming as early as next week. Just recently, it was announced that Lionsgate had picked up the long-gestating project with Smith returning to direct the sequel. It was also confirmed that all of the original cast members would be returning with production slated to start in August.

On Instagram, Kevin Smith posted an image of himself with several of the Clerks and Clerks II stars that we'll be seeing in Clerks III. The photo was taken just after everyone had read through the script aloud together for the first time, and going by the smile on Smith's face, he seems to be very happy with how it's turned out. It sounds like old school Clerks fans will be happy as well,...

Kevin Smith is celebrating the 15th anniversary of Clerks II just as pre-production officially begins on the upcoming sequel Clerks 3. Just recently, it was announced that Lionsgate had picked up the third installment of the franchise that first launched Smith's career as a filmmaker in 1994. The sequel, Clerks II, was released in theaters in 2006, featuring a mix of new and returning characters.

On Wednesday, Kevin Smith tweeted an image of a Clerks II poster in honor of the 15th anniversary. In the tweet, Smith writes: "Clerks II came out 15 years ago today. It remains one of my favorite things I've ever done, professionally or personally. @DarkNateReturns commemorates the occasion with this amazing poster! A week from Monday, we start shooting Clerks III - and the 7 leads shown here all return!"

Clerks II came out 15 years ago today. It remains one of my favorite things I’ve ever done, professionally or personally.

Jay and Silent Bob are striking back in a brand new video game that will be available on May 7. Jay and Silent Bob: Mall Brawl is set to arrive for the Nintendo Switch and PC starting next week. To commemorate the occasion, a new trailer has been revealed that showcases the sidescrolling, 8-bit action coming our way.

The game is seemingly set in the Mallrats universe and looks like it could have easily been released on the Nes back in the day. 8-bit versions of Kevin Smith's Silent Bob and Jason Mewes' Jay are tasked with beating up endless hordes of enemies as they try to battle their way out of the mall. Nintendo also released an official description of the game, which reads as follows.

"Play as Jay and Silent Bob in a retro 8-bit sidescrolling brawler. Go solo or team up with a friend. Pummel enemies with hard-hitting combos,...

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We spoke to actor and frequent Kevin Smith collaborator Jason Mewes about his new movies Bling, Yoga Hosers, MallBrats and Clerks III…

Clerks is one of the movies that made me love movies, and so it was with more pre-interview nerves than usual that I waited on hold to connect with Jay actor Jason Mewes via a crackly international phone-line.

We were due to talk about the animated movie Bling - in which Mewes voices a robot monkey called Kit, who shirks his responsibilities as a theme park employee to help the main character (voiced by Taylor Kitsch) take down a super villain and propose to his girlfriend – but the memory of all the nights I’ve spent chuckling away to Jay and Silent Bob’s antics had put some serious fear into me.

I needn’t have worried, because Mewes proved to be a lovely chap to chat with,...

Next year, Chris Pine finally joins the superhero movie world as Steve Trevor in Wonder Woman. While the majority of this genre features men as the lead characters, this will be the first time in over a decade that a woman is the primary hero. Pine has previously expressed his satisfaction with being part of the project in a supporting capacity, and now he’s offered his take on why female-led superhero movies are a refreshing change of pace. During his visit to Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night, Chris Pine admitted to the host that while all the “big, tent pole action films” are fun and action-packed, having a woman as the lead character this time around takes away the typical formula these blockbusters usually follow. Pine said: With men at the helm it’s always a revenge cycle thing – we’re gonna ...

Last night, Chris Pine made an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to talk about his upcoming film, The Finest Hours. Kimmel, of course, took the opportunity to ask him about his role in the new Wonder Woman movie he is currently filming in London. "I play a guy named Steve Trevor, for all of you that know the lore, is Wonder Woman's better half." He then revealed what prompted him to join Wonder Woman in the Dceu. "I see a lady named Gal Gadot in it and she's fantastic and she's doing a wonderful job. " During the interview the host also asked pine whether or not Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman would be flying around in her famous invisible plane. To Kimmel's surprise, the actor said he had no idea what he was talking about and was clueless to the idea of the character's rather riduclous plane being in the film.

Talk of Mallrats 2 continues to escalate into further bouts of social media madness as director Kevin Smith has opted to use Twitter as a casting announcement tool. In the last couple of weeks, the status of the shopping-centric sequel has gone from non-existent to very much on Smith’s upcoming production slate. And of course, as the film falls within his very own View Askewniverse, he’s intent on roping in all of the main players from the 1995 caper to reprise their roles. Which is just plain brilliant.

So far, the returnees are: Jason Lee as Brodie Bruce, Shannen Doherty as Renee, Smith as Silent Bob, Jason Mewes as his mouthy buddy Jay, Ethan Suplee as Willam, Stan Lee as himself and Michael Rooker as the pretzel-eating Mr. Svenning.

Ready for more? Here’s Smith’s latest batch of confirmed recruits:

T.S. Quint proposes a return to the Jaws ride!

Director Kevin Smith continues to add more and more cast members for his upcoming sequel Mallrats 2, with original Mallrats stars Joey Lauren Adams (Gwen), Ren&#233e Humphrey (Trish) and Sven-Ole Thorsen (Lafours) coming back to reprise their roles. They join director/star Kevin Smith (Silent Bob), Jason Mewes (Jay), Ethan Suplee (William), Jason Lee (Brodie), Stan Lee (Himself), Michael Rooker (Mr Svenning), Shannen Doherty (Rene) and Jeremy London (T.S. Quint). What's interesting is it seems the director is bringing even more actors from Mallrats on board than originally planned.

When Kevin Smith revealed that Jeremy London was coming back last week, his tweet said "8 down, 4 to go," implying that he has four more Mallrats cast members left to add. However, when the director announced Sven-Ole Thorsen's casting today, he said, "11 down, now 4 to go." Two of the main Mallrats cast members that have not been confirmed yet are...

As you no doubt have seen by now, Kevin Smith has been on a casting kick, releasing pictures of the returning cast for Mallrats 2. That trend continues with Renee Humphrey (Trish the Dish) taking part, but Smith also let us know that a character from Clerks 2 would be making his way into Clerks 3. Check out the announcement below! Trish The Dish vs Elias! In-Real-Life couple Renee Humphrey and Trevor Fehrman have a finger-battle for sequel dominance between their respective roles in...

Jimmy Kimmel says (I Wanna) Channing All Over Your Tatum, Senator Lisa Murkowski comes out for marriage, while Senator Jay Rockefeller comes out for Enda

Delaware Governor Jack Markell has signed a transgender rights bill that adds gender identity to the state’s hate crime laws and makes it a protected class. The bill only just passed the House today, and the Senate quickly took up the amended bill to send to the governor’s desk.

Here’s Zayn Malik taking a bite of a candy thong that Harry Styles is wearing. Like normal straight boys do. Seriously, I’m actually convinced they’re all straight, but I’m damned if I understand them.

Secretary of State John Kerry believes that the United States has a moral obligation to lobby for equality around the world. “When we see the abuse of those values, that are directed at the Lgbt community,...

Kevin Smith – either you’re a devout follower of his cinematic career, or you think he’s the bottom of the cinema barrel. The maker of such films as Clerks, Mallrats, Zack and Miri Make A Porno, and Red State has long voiced his disapproval of Hollywood norms and suggested retirement, but recently declared his upcoming hockey comedy Hit Somebody would be his final curtain call. Or so we thought.

Due to a recent shift that saw Hit Somebody be crunched from two films back into one, and then again cut into a six-part miniseries, it seems Smith still wants to go out on the big screen. And hell, if you’re Kevin Smith, why not treat your cult-like fans to exactly what they want – another Clerks film.

In an effort to give one final middle finger to Hollywood, Kevin Smith has announced via Twitter his final film will in fact be Clerks III,...

Ryan Reynolds is in final discussions to play the title role in the reboot of Highlander. I used to love the television show, but this feels like another unnecessary reboot.

The NAACP has passed a resolution supporting marriage equality. “Civil marriage is a civil right and a matter of civil law,” says NAACP president Benjamin Todd Jealous.

As the Facebook Ipo fizzled (funny how a magic $100 billion appearing is a fizzle), Bono was reportedly set to reap a lot of money through his Elevation Partners, which purchased 2.3% of the company two years ago. Word was, he'd become the world's richest musician, surpassing Sir Paul McCartney's $1 billion net worth. But Bono says that the stock is owned by many partners, and the news of his ascension to billionaire is grossly exaggerated.

As sentencing approaches for Dharun Ravi in the death of Tyler Clementi, support for leniency is appearing from many gay voices,...

“Jay and Silent Bob may return. As for now, they’re taking it easy”…

These are the words that were read after the credits had rolled on Clerks II – a sequel to Director/Writer Kevin Smith’s 1994 breakthrough Clerks. And it seems as though the next time we will see the dope-dealing duo will be on a Broadway stage.

Since confirming that his next film (Hit Somebody) will be his last film as Writer/Director, Smith has been concentrating his efforts on smaller projects – such as a very popular series of Podcasts and helping to get TV reality show Comic Book Men off the ground – and it was during the launch of his new book that he spoke to Entertainment Weekly about his plan to bring Clerks III to the stage.

Smith goes into a surprising amount of detail for a project that was only conceived a couple of mere months ago.

By far one of my all-time favourite writer-directors, Kevin Smith announced last year that he intends to have Hit Somebody be the final film he directs.

Like all other Smith fans out there, the thought of a finite number of Smith projects left was devastating, but he’s thankfully since gone on to say that he’ll be working in different media and in other ways.

EW recently spoke to Smith at a book signing in New York – for his latest book, Tough Sh*t: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good (available in the UK now: here or here, for example) – and he talked about his plans on revisiting the world of his first and seventh films in an entirely different format:

“Kevin Smith: Jeff [Anderson] was the first person I reached out to. I sent him an email after I’d seen Alan Rickman in...

When Kevin Smith announced last year that his upcoming hockey movie Hit Somebody would be his final film as a director, you could almost hear a collective sigh of disappointment from hard-core fans of Dante and Randal, Jay and Silent Bob. Smith’s convenience-store drones and derelicts introduced Smith’s Jersey brand of profane wit in 1994′s Clerks, and a successful 2006 sequel proved that audiences hadn’t had enough. Smith’s retirement threatened to kill any chances of completing the Quik Stop trilogy — a challenge you’d think might tempt the Star Wars-obsessed Smith. Well, there is a new hope.